


Magnetic North

by msermesth



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: A.I. Tony, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguments, Bottom Steve, Bottom Tony Stark, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, Joseph Rogers' A+ Parenting, M/M, Mentioned domestic abuse, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, Post-Civil War II (Marvel), Post-Secret Empire (Marvel), Rimming, Road Trips, Secret Empire Fix-it, Smoking, holy shit what's happened to Steve?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 52,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msermesth/pseuds/msermesth
Summary: Tony joins Steve on his post-Secret Empire road-trip-slash-pity-party.Turns out the road home is paved with a lot of arguments and sex.





	1. Only a Thread

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to [a kind of macabre and somber Wondertwin type of harmony](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13169697). I hate to say it, but you’re probably going to want to read that first to find out how exactly Steve and Tony meet again.
> 
> I began plotting this out at about the same time Marvel announced that Mark Waid was going to write Steve’s post-Secret Empire road trip, so this fic diverges pretty much immediately after the end of Secret Empire Omega. I’ve been writing this on and off since then, and have finally got to a point where I feel it’s either publish or perish. 
> 
> I really wanted to write the kind of hyper-referential fix- it that I love to read, so look out to a lot of mentions about the recent HydraCap storyline in addition to discussions the incursions and the registration act.
> 
> I’d really like to thank everyone on 616 discord server who answered my random questions as I was going along and influenced a lot of what’s here. I’d especially like to thank [sheron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron), who worked with me closely, provided amazing edits, and who overall convinced me to keep writing even when I was _so done_ with it.

Tony takes a bite of wheat toast, soaked in butter and just on the right side of burnt, and struggles to swallow. It sticks in his throat and his stomach immediately wants to reject it, but he tries anyway, focusing on how much he needs something in his body over the desire to never eat anything again. Steve’s watching him—he’s practically boring holes into Tony’s skull—but he doesn’t say anything about it.

Tony still has most of his plate left to finish and he’s sure he won’t be able to. When he had ordered ten minutes ago, heavy breakfast food had sounded better than a night at Alinea, but he hadn’t taken into consideration that it has been months since he’s eaten anything at all.

“What’s your verdict?” Steve asks, like he just wants know if the food tastes good and not why Tony’s visibly trying not to retch everything back up.

Tony tries to think of the safest thing to say. He settles on, “Not bad.”

Steve doesn’t believe him, but he mercifully doesn’t push and returns to his own eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Tony tries to take another bite of food and luckily this one is easier. Getting through the meal is slow work and Tony keeps himself occupied by listening to the early morning news on the TV behind him while watching the cars pass on the road outside, all the while studying Steve out of the corner of his eye.

There’s no way to say it nicely—Steve looks like a complete wreck. He’s clean, at least, and his hair isn’t sticking up every which way like it was when Tony first saw him this morning. But that doesn’t cover the fact that his clothes are frayed, his leather jacket looks like it’s been through the wash too many times, and his face tells a story Tony hasn’t decided if he wants to know. It’s not as if Tony hasn’t caught up on Hydra or why Steve’s hiding away in small Midwestern towns, but none of that could prepare him for seeing Steve defeated and broken.

“How ya’ doing?” Tony asks and knows he’s not going to get an answer no matter how many time he asks it. It feels like asking questions Steve refuses to respond to is the bare minimum of what he can do, but he’s not sure what his other options are.

“You should see a doctor,” Steve responds like he didn’t even hear the question. “Hank McCoy or someone who understands your body.” Steve says ‘body’ like it’s a foreign object that isn’t sitting a few feet away from him, like the whole situation baffles him so much that he he adopted detachment as a coping strategy.

Tony scoffs, loudly to amplify the effect, and tries to defend himself. “Steve, I don’t need a doctor.” _I need an engineer_ , he thinks. “And Hank can’t do it. Reed could, but… yeah. Maybe Pym could try, but I don’t want him within a mile of me if I can do anything about it. Victor—”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Doom?”

“He’s good now. Haven’t you heard?”

“Then why aren’t you with him?” Tony honestly can’t decide what Steve is actually asking with that question. He doesn’t think Steve even knows if he wants Tony around or not.

“Just because he’s good doesn’t mean I trust him,” Tony lies, because the truth is— _you were the first thing I thought of, and all the things after that were just background noise._

Steve grunts, and Tony isn’t sure what that means, either. Reading Steve right now is like coming across a new text, understanding all the symbols that make up a writing system, and not the language it’s writing. “I’m just worried,” Steve says, and eyes Tony’s coffee. “You haven’t drank any.”

Tony tries, he picks it up and brings it to his lips and tastes the now lukewarm liquid; it turns his stomach just like it did ten minutes ago. Steve squints and there are questions behind his eyes and judgment in the lines on his forehead. “Guess I kicked the habit?”

Steve nods, falsely agreeing, but he doesn’t push and they do what they’ve been doing since they sat down in this diner.

“So last night looked fun…” Tony prompts because he’s genuinely curious about the state he caught Steve in this morning. There are only so many reasons a person walks home at four in the morning, missing a sock and smelling like sweat and sex.

“What do you want to know?” Steve asks, like any information about himself and his life is so worthless, he might as well hand it all over.

Tony isn’t expecting that response. Steve was definitely a ‘don’t kiss and tell’ kind of guy. So, Tony settles himself enough to put on the blankest face he can, and asks, “What’s her name?”

The waitress stops by to fill up Steve’s coffee, but Tony only registers it as moments Steve gets to avoid answering the question. He squirms in the vinyl booth, and mentally reviews a few scenarios to stop Steve from answering the question he asked.

Steve scratches his head. “Mike,” he says like he’s not one-hundred percent sure.

“Mike,” Tony repeats and he’s too flabbergasted to make it a question. Steve seems entirely disinterested in Tony’s response, and returns to looking out the window. “How’d you meet… Mike?”

“The bar down the street.”

“Uh-huh.”

Without prompting, Steve adds, “I’m not going to see him again.”

“Okay.” _I didn’t need to know that_ , Tony thinks, because the only way he’s learned to cope with the concept of Steve’s love life is knowing nothing. Tony will never understand why he always does this; why he pokes and prods and picks at Steve’s love life like a scab and is somehow still surprised when it bleeds. The frustration is that he _wants_ to want the sort of relationship where they can just casually talk about sex and love, especially now, when the only thing Steve seems willing to open up about is a one-night stand.

“It helps,” Steve continues to say. He’s still looking out the window, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that it’s not because something outside is keeping his attention, but because he’s avoiding looking at Tony. “Being with someone… helps.”

There is a proper response to that, something smart and witty that would naturally steer the conversation in a direction Tony is more comfortable with, but Tony has no idea what it is. “How?” he croaks out.

Steve turns from the morning sunlight and mumbles into his coffee. “It just helps me forget, I guess.”

That’s the moment Tony decides he’s going to destroy anything and everything that made Steve sound like _that_.

Does he reach forward and grab Steve’s hand? Tell him it’s okay? Urge him to move on? Tony doesn’t know and settles for doing absolutely nothing more than watching Steve eat and pathetically attempting to at least swallow enough food to look like he’s trying.

Steve’s almost done scraping the plate clean when he tenses up and quickly pulls out a couple of twenty dollar bills from his coat pocket. “I need to step out,” he says, like it’s an explanation, and lays the money on the table. Tony turns to watch him quickly shuffle out the double glass doors, and that’s when he sees the television.

Tony hadn’t actually _seen_ it before, but now that it’s playing in front of him, he’s glad he managed to get a couple of days without looking at the footage of Hydra’s America. The early morning news is surveying the wreckage of Las Vegas, but every so often they’ll cut to shots of Steve speechifying in all green against a Hydra banner. The effect is… surreal.

 _Nauseating_ is probably a better word.

The Steve on the television looks so much like the man Tony was just sitting across from: same blond hair, blue eyes, square jaw. It’s the differences that are striking. Tony looks out the window where Steve is fishing out a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and standing in defiance of the cold wind, and then he looks back behind him to the TV and he doesn’t need to be able to read lips to know that _that_ Steve is discussing the ‘inhuman menace’.

It comes together at that moment and Tony gets it.

He tears his eyes off the screen and looks again to Steve’s back; he doesn’t see Steve take a drag, but he watches the way his shoulders rise and fall with each inhale. _He’s here_ , Tony thinks, _and maybe that means he can get better_.

Tony adds another twenty to the pile Steve’s put on the table—he figures that should cover it—and throws his coat on as he walks out the door. Steve doesn’t move at the sound of the jingling bells or the door slamming closed because of the wind, but he jumps when Tony arrives at his side.

Cars speed on the highway in front of them, and Tony knows Steve isn’t seeing them. “We don’t need to talk about it,” Tony tells him.

Steve waits a beat, measures his words, and responds, “I didn’t say…”

“I know. But if you don’t want to talk about it, then we won’t. Okay?”

Tony stands there and waits for Steve to acknowledge what he’s said, but instead all he hears is the roar of the highway. His bones feel cold and somehow it’s making his knees weak and his head hurt, but a whiff of Steve’s cigarette smoke fills his nostrils and warms him. “Can I have one?” he asks Steve and motions to the pocket he knows contains Steve’s pack of cigarettes.

Steve studies him and shakes his head. “No.”

“No?”

“You haven’t recovered,” Steve explains. The look he’s giving Tony is like a single ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds, only to be covered like it was never there at all. He isn’t smiling, but something about his disapproval feels like a smile. For the first time today, Tony knows Steve— _his Steve_ —is still in there.

“Yes, dad,” he jokes and feels a little less cold.

Steve walks to his bike, but Tony can see the way he shakes his head.

It’s only a thread to the man Steve Tony remembers, but Tony vows to hold on tight.

 

* * *

 

Tony wouldn’t have thought they’d be on the road as soon as they were, him holding Steve snug from behind on his bike, but Steve begins picking up clothes off the floor the moment they cross the threshold of the motel room. When before the room could have belonged to an apathetic teenager, it quickly becomes a perfectly made bed and scrubbed down tub. Steve’s clearly a pro at leaving no trace of himself behind. Tony just sits on a ratty chair in the corner and watches as Steve throws everything into a backpack and walks outside to empty the waste bins himself. _Always so considerate_ , Tony thinks as all of this happens.

“That’s everything,” Steve says, fifteen minutes after they arrive. He turns around and finally looks at Tony. “Where to?”

Tony shrugs. He’s not entirely sure what you do in the Upper Midwest in winter. He’s pretty sure hunting is a thing, and for a few seconds he’s sure he could handle ice-fishing, but he’s agnostic at the moment. Right now Tony’s been eyeing Steve’s bed with jealousy. He’s just too tired. “North?”

Steve nods in agreement without a second thought and walks out the door. It almost slams closed, but Steve must recognize that before it happens because he ducks back in and holds it open as Tony tries to stagger out, completely focused on putting one foot after the other. Tony absolutely does not let Steve hold him up as they walk to where Steve’s motorcycle is parked outside, and he certainly doesn’t need Steve to help him lift his leg onto the back of the seat. “Are you going to be ok to hold on?” Steve asks and Tony wraps his arms around Steve’s waist as defiantly as he can.

“I’ll be fine,” Tony huffs. Steve wants to argue, but he’s pretty sure Steve also knows how quickly disagreeing about this particular issue will escalate, so he hands his helmet and gloves to Tony and shimmies down in the seat so that his stance is perfect.

“We’ll need to get you some actual outerwear before we leave town,” he says without turning to look at Tony. Tony rolls his eyes even though Steve can’t see it. “I’m not arguing about it.”

With the rhythm of someone who’s done this a lot, Steve starts the bike and kicks off. Five excruciating minutes later, they slide into an almost empty K-Mart parking lot. It takes half an hour to find the right combination of long underwear, sweaters, and a heavy coat, but once he does, Steve pays the cashier while Tony changes in a tiny bathroom that smells strongly of bleach. Once or twice he almost stumbles over his own feet as he tries to lift his legs enough to slip on heavy wool socks, but he manages to leave the bathroom with his dignity intact.

All the effort makes him hot, though, and the cold air feels brisker this time and less blustery. Steve follows, deep in thought but with no desire to share whatever is on his mind, and stuffs the rest of the socks and shirts they also bought into his pack. He seems less held down, at least, like the stress of watching Tony possibly freeze had been enough of a concern to add fifty pounds to the figurative weight he always carries on his shoulders. They don't say anything as they both straddle the bike, almost in tandem, and Tony holds on as tight as he can as Steve revs the engine.

Tony’s sure he shouldn’t, but the exhaustion is beginning to be too much to keep his head upright. He ends up resting it snuggled between Steve’s shoulder blades, cheek pressed against his leather coat, and closing his eyes. From this position he watches as the scenery changes from chain restaurants to densely wooded areas and then to farms and then back again. It reminds him of the time he woke up in Oklahoma, missing memories and starting over. The fauna might be a little different and the roads are dotted with more bars, but Tony tries to find comfort in it. He needs something to hold on to, something tangible, something real.

He tightens his hold around Steve’s body, but Steve’s exceptional body-fat ratio makes him a pillar of stone. Except maybe his smile, there’s never been anything soft about Steve’s features. Even the clothes he’s wearing don’t add any squishable bulk to bury himself into.

Steve takes his eyes off the road and twists himself back, trying to look at Tony and mostly failing to do so. He must see the way Tony’s eyes are drooping—he certainly felt how Tony kept adjusting to maintain his hold—and those fifty pound are back on his shoulders; Tony feels him tense up through the coat. Tony tries to give Steve the best smile he can muster, but even he knows it’s weak, and Steve turns back to the road and picks up the speed.

It’s fifteen minutes until they see a motel on the side of the highway and Steve makes a hard right turn into the parking lot that almost knocks Tony off the bike. Tony wonders what its function is, given that they are a ways off the lake, but he’s sure at some point more than a few people stayed here at a time. Steve has to help him off the bike and Tony’s finally ready to accept that he may not have the energy for today’s leg of their road trip.

“Hello, gentlemen,” greets a middle age woman with wispy bleached hair and what Tony’s sure is a permanent expression of apathy. Her name tag says ‘Marcia’. “You staying for the evening or just a couple of hours?” Steve gives Tony a look, silently asking how much time he needs, and then turns away before waiting for Tony’s answer.

“The whole night, please.”

Marcia shakes her head and makes a show of checking the computer’s database. “Hmmm… seems we only have one room left. It’s got two beds, not the one. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Oh, thank god,” Tony mutters to himself with relief when he hears that. He hadn’t been aware that the possibility existed that they would have to share a bed, and he’s thankful they won’t have to do the standard two-men song and dance about it. Tony’s not sure he could handle the inevitable conclusion that would lead to: both of them sleeping on either side and Tony trying his hardest to will down an uncomfortable regret.

Marcia snorts her own relief and quickly checks them in. Steve pays in cash and only provides the most basic of pleasantries as they finish up and take their keys.

“You know she was lying,” Steve tells him as they walk out the door and back to the bike to pick up their things. He doesn't make an effort to lower his voice enough so that Marcia can’t hear it.

“I know,” Tony agrees, and he certain as if he’s seen the hotel’s dated reservation system himself.

It takes them minutes to find exactly where their room is and Tony is incredibly grateful that it’s on the first floor given that every step is weighing him more and more down. When they finally open the door and the room’s musty smell hits his nostrils, he’s never been happier to see a bed before. He falls face first on the one closest to him and just lies there with the intention of getting up and putting on something more comfortable for sleep. Steve does whatever he needs to do, but Tony only hears him wash his face and unzip his bag.

“You asleep?” Steve asks and sits down on the bed next to Tony, causing the cheap mattress to dip and Tony to roll closer.

“No,” Tony says but he knows it’s obvious that it’s just a matter of time until he’s out and probably snoring. Steve rubs a gentle hand on his back through the coat. He stands up and then tries to tug the coat off, Tony goes limp enough that he can be easily maneuvered, but doesn’t help any more of that. “What’re you doing?” he mumbles, already too tired to really care what Steve’s answer is.

“You can’t sleep dressed like this,” Steve explains, and folds the coat and gently places it on the bed next to them. He tugs Tony’s boots off, with Tony still smushed face-first into the bed, and something about someone else removing his shoes makes Tony feel very vulnerable. He lets out a sigh when the second one comes off. Steve sets both boots next to each other by the window. “Socks, on or off?” Tony nods, which mostly amounts to rubbing his face into the bedspread. A rush of cold air hits his bare feet as Steve tugs off his socks and Tony wiggles his toes to really feel it. “Pants?” Steve’s not any more unsure with that question, even though it sends a weird uncomfortable tingle up Tony’s spine.

“Mmmmhmmmm…” Tony mumbles. He has long underwear beneath, it’s not like he’s going to be exposed. Steve pulls off the jeans with precision and somehow managing not to touch Tony anywhere that would be possibly weird. The jeans end up on the next bed, which Tony can tell more by the sounds of Steve moving than what he can see in his unfocused peripheral vision. He tries to push himself up enough that he can slide under the scratchy comforter and necessary top sheet, but his muscles are have lost a lot of strength in the last ten minutes, and he falls back to bed with an ‘umph’ and less dignity than he had before.

Steve hears that and rolls Tony over. “My hero,” Tony whispers in what is meant to be sarcasm but sounds dangerously close to the truth, but nothing in Steve’s face changes that indicates any of it matters.

It’s awkward, but Steve manages to pick him up and fold down the blanket before putting Tony down. “That okay?” Steve asks as he readjusts the blanket and pillow.

“You don’t have to do this…” Tony says instead of a real answer. He should be scared at how tired he feels, but that barely registers.

“Tony,” Steve starts, sounding just a touch angry, “You need a doctor. This is only the best I can do.” Tony drifts off then and hopes when he wakes up he’s nowhere else than this motel room.

 

* * *

 

Steve opens the door to the motel room with a deliberate twist of the wobbly handle and he uses all of his super-soldier hearing ability to listen for anything he doesn’t expect. All his ears pick up are the sounds of Tony’s even breathing over the steady hum of a wall-unit heater. His journey to the front desk in search for a pack of cards ended up with him spending the last half-hour helping someone jump start their car, so it's a relief that Tony is still there, sleeping on his bed, and safe somehow after everything. What he had been expecting, Steve doesn’t know. But expectations don’t do much to dispel the unease that’s been sitting in his stomach since Tony showed up that morning.

Tony’s been sleeping for the last several hours, the first two of which Steve simply laid on the other bed and stared at the ceiling. He switched to chain smoking outside the door when his mind kept wanting to return to the dream he had the night before. He remembers as little of it as he did when he woke up this morning, but the afterimage feels like deja vu, and sitting here next to a sleeping and vulnerable Tony, just caused him to keep scratching it.

He sits back, cross-legged on the bed he must be considering as his, given Tony’s fast asleep on the other one, and pulls out the pack of cards. Tony’s chest rises and falls slowly and Steve watches it out of the corner of his eye as he shuffles the deck and deals out a game of solitaire. With his diminished frame, Tony’s breathing looks delicate. For half a game Steve racks his brain to figure out what exactly he is trying to remember when he looks at Tony, passed out and so, so trusting. Without asking, Steve’s mind supplies the exact amount of pressure he would need to crush Tony’s windpipe. His hand twitches in response and he stares at it with guilty fear.

It isn’t safe, here. It isn’t safe anywhere near Steve at the moment, and Tony has to go and show up in his motel room with his trust and his friendship when all Steve has are regrets and fear and revulsion of his own skin.

There is just too much history between them.

Steve throws the cards in his hand across the room and then realizes a second too late that it was a bad idea. “Steve?” Tony mumbles into the pillow he’s pressed into. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” Steve says. “Go back to sleep.”

But Tony’s already pushing himself off of the bed. “No. Slept too long, already.” He looks better, at least. Steve makes a mental note to make sure they stop often so Tony can sleep when needed and to not wait until Tony actually asks for it. In his thoughts, Tony slips off the back of Steve’s bike, and Steve shudders. He won’t let that happen. “What’re you doing?” Tony asks when he sees the mess of cards all over the bedspread, and the few scattered on the carpet near the corner.

“Solitaire,” Steve explains, picking up the cards and straightening the deck.

“You know you can play on a phone or a computer.”

Steve isn’t going to tell Tony that he threw his phone into Lake Michigan. “I know.” He shuffles the cards, implementing the shuffle technique his father once taught him. He remembers how it took him months to do it as well as his father had, and that by the time he did, his dad hadn’t been living at home anymore. “It’s more fun this way.” _It’s more real, this way_ , he reminds himself.

“Mmmmhmmm,” Tony mumbles, clearly not agreeing with whatever Steve’s saying but not fighting it either. He sits on the bed, opposite Steve and reaches over to grab the cards out of Steve’s hand.

Steve tries not to look too close at Tony as he shuffles the cards in his own way, and he wonders who taught him that technique. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“Mmmmhmmm.” Steve doesn’t believe him either.

Tony rolls his eyes at Steve’s obvious judgement and stands up, placing the deck on the end table between their two beds and then lifting his arms far above his head in an extended stretch. His shirt rides up and Steve sees skin and that he hasn’t has much in the way of real food in the last couple of months. “We should eat something,” he says and tries to make it sound casual.

Tony twists to the each side to continue his extended stretch in response before dropping his limbs in an extended huff. “Are you hungry?”

Steve thinks about it and replies honestly. “No.”

“Then, I’m good for the moment.” He grabs his ankle and stretches his quadriceps and looks around the motel room for something he’s clearly not seeing. “I’m guessing this place doesn’t have a gym.”

“I would be very surprised if it did.”

“Then I have a favor to ask.” Tony switches legs with a hop that sends him hurtling forward into Steve. Steve manages to catch him by the shoulders and lightly push him back on his feet, but even as Tony sits back down across from him, the pang of fear that filled Steve stays.

“What can I do?” Steve asks. He feels dangerously helpless staring at Tony with his gaunt features and sickly complexion. Steve wants to help him in any way he can, but his mind keeps supplying images of Tony lying motionless and vulnerable, protected only by the stasis pod he made for himself to save him from the villains of the world. There was no way Tony had known when he built it that the man he needed to protect himself from Steve. Steve, who he implicitly trusted and respected. Steve—the version of him that survives in his memories—who wanted nothing but to watch Tony break under his own hands.

Tony smiles and it’s a slight thing, as if the thought of Steve trying to help him makes him more sad than comforted. “I just need time, I think. And to move. Every time I stand up I get lightheaded.”

Steve squints at Tony and his atrophied muscles. Tony needs to gain strength, and strength is something Steve knows intimately. “That’s something I can help with.”

“We could spar,” Tony says as soon as Steve stops talking and he’s animated in a way he wasn’t before.

“You sure?” Steve definitely isn’t. He could easily break Tony, even without trying.

“It’s a good workout. Plus, I know you’ll go easy on me.”

There it is again—trust—and it makes Steve’s heart stop for a second. He wants to be worthy of it so badly. “Ok, but not for long.”

“Sure, just long enough to work up my appetite.” Tony stands up, pulls on his jeans and shoes, and moves to the front of the motel room where they have the most space. Steve nods, silently happy that Tony might be willing to eat, and follows him. He studies the room and tries to predict all the possible ways Tony could fall and injure himself. It would be better if they had real mats and equipment, and not the thin, stained carpet beneath their feet. “Ready, old man?” Tony taunts.

That’s good; that’s what Steve wants to hear. He doesn’t respond, not with words, at least, but he bends his knees and raises his hands in an obvious fighting stance. Tony mirrors him and Steve is happy to note that Tony looks comfortable like this. “Try and hit me,” Steve tells him.

“With pleasure,” Tony jokes, and he steps forward in a quick succession of three beats that end in a punch bolstered by how he puts his all of his weight on his left leg. Steve stops it, easily, with the palm of his hand and Tony quickly returns to his earlier position.

“Again.”

Tony tries the same move, though he leads off from his right foot this time, and Steve delays his reaction enough that Tony follows through on the punch before he stops it.

“Again.”

This one’s an uppercut—it’s telegraphed just by the way Tony has to slowly bend at the waist to do so—but it’s harder for Steve to duck. He pulls back so that Tony only punches air before he stumbles forward from having put too much of his weight into the punch. Overall, his technique is fine, Steve thinks, but he’s sloppy in how he’s using his strength and slow in his delivery. These are all things then can work on and Tony will feel more comfortable with in time. It’s encouraging.

“Again.”

A cross, this time, one that hits from his hind foot and not the front. Steve catches it without thinking much about it. “Oh, come on,” Tony says. “At least let me have that one.” He’s panting now from the little exertion they have done and he looks unsteady on his feet.

It’s a joke, Steve knows this, because even though Tony is comfortable with Steve pulling his punches, he doesn’t want it to be handed to him.

Except, the idea grabs hold of his mind and doesn’t let go. He blinks a couple of time, but every second that passes cements something.

Tony could hit him, and Steve could feel the cleansing power of pain. It wouldn’t fix anything, but at least he’d something that others have felt at his hand.

Steve drops his fighting pose and stands up straight. “I’ll give you a freebie. Hit me.”

Tony squints at him. “Huh?”

“I want you to hit me.”

Tony looks around the room as if there’s an explanation he missed somewhere there. “I don’t want to hit you.”

Steve doesn’t back down. “We’re sparring, Tony. It’s not any different than it was before.”

“Yes it is. And I won’t do it.”

“Why not?” Steve scoffs. “Someone should. If it wasn’t for me, Las Vegas would still be here. You know how many Inhumans died in the last year? If people hadn’t trusted—”

“That’s bullshit, Steve,” Tony says, cutting him off and raising his voice. “It wasn’t you.”

Tony doesn’t understand. “But that’s what people don’t get, it didn’t _have_ to be me. My reputation was warped, but if it hadn’t been there in the first place…”

“You gained that reputation by saving the world hundreds of times over. It. Wasn’t. You.” Tony’s posture is getting defensive, as if he expects Steve to hit him instead.

“What do you know? You weren’t there. And that was my fault, too.” Steve’s talking fast and he takes a moment to catch his breath. “I remember, you know. He wanted you to lose, and he knew exactly how to manipulate you. Where do you think he learned that?”

“I don’t give a fuck what he did. _You_ would never have done that to me,” Tony says, just decibels away from shouting.

“But I did, Tony. That’s what you don’t get,” Steve yells. His heartbeat is out of control. “I hunted you down during the incursion crisis.”

“That was a lifetime ago—”

“I tried to kill you.”

Tony puts his hands out in an effort to deescalate the situation. “If I remember correctly, we tried to kill each other.”

“Tony, why can’t you get it?” Steve feels hysterical and overwhelmed. If only he could convince Tony why he deserves this and make him see every mistake he's made, all the ones that he can't stop reliving. “I put that EMP in your hand!”

“Who cares, Steve? It doesn't matter. We figured it out.” He says it like it was nothing, like none of it matters, when it’s all Steve can feel at the moment.

“It does though.” He looks out the window. Tony won’t help him, can’t help him, and here he is, pushing away the closest thing he has to a friend. “Because, all that time I wanted to hurt you, I knew it was irrational. I knew it was my way of processing how I cared, and Tony? I was obsessed with you. And it wasn’t until _he_ came along that I realized why.” Steve looks at the carpet. It should be replaced. “See, he knew me better than I knew myself. He knew that I love you—”

Pain ignites the right side of Steve’s face. There are a few seconds where that’s all he feels, a few seconds before he can process that Tony has finally hit him. He raises his fingers to the tender skin and feels a rush of pride.

Tony’s technique had been perfect.

The door slams; Steve looks up.

Tony's gone.


	2. The Theory of Captain America and Iron Man

Steve sits on the bed and waits.

And waits, and waits, and waits.

He waits one hour, to the minute, before he stands up, grabs his coat and steps outside. The cold hits him and he’s sure the temperature has dropped since he walked home in the early morning.

It's dark outside, a detail that sends Steve another jolt of fear for Tony. Indecision, the kind that other people complain about, the kind he's only began to understand, burrows further in his brain. Tony's alone, weak, and unprepared for the weather. Everything in Steve screams _find him_.

Everything, except the part that knows intrinsically that all he can do to Tony is hurt him more.

Steve gets on his bike and speeds out of the parking lot. He goes north, because that's the direction they haven't seen, and aims to stop at the first place he can find with heating.

The first he sees is a small roadside bar. He pretends it’s not there.

The second is a McDonald's. Steve slides into the almost empty parking lot bathed in neon and gets off his bike in an inelegant hop. At first he sees nothing on the other side of the windows, no one familiar at least. It's the baggy pants that catch his eye and he realizes he was trying to find a different, much healthier Tony.

Steve ignores the front counter as he stomps in, and for the moment, he isn't particularly concerned if his foot-falls catch anyone's attention.

They catch Tony's. He looks up from the plastic booth he's sitting in, eyes red and wide and inscrutable; Steve has no idea if that look means fear or surprise.

"Steve," Tony whispers, and his voice is hoarse, as if he’d been crying this whole time. He looks sick, his uneaten Egg McMuffin surrounded by rolled up napkins covered in snot.

The guilt just keeps compounding with every second Steve stands there, looking for a clue on how to move forward. "Tony," is about all he can decide is safe to say.

Tony looks around at the rest of the patrons instead of Steve's eyes.

"Tony," Steve says again, because no one here gives a damn about them.

That must get through because Tony's eyes snap up and his jaw sets. "Sit," he demands, motioning across from him, clearly determined on something.

Steve does, even though it's a tight fit, and he keeps his eyes forward, ready for whatever admonishment he's earned.

Tony reaches across the table and Steve can feel the cold still radiating off him when Tony's fingers graze his bruised cheek. "I can't believe I did that."

"It was a hell of a right hook," Steve responds, unable to keep the pride out of his voice. He taught Tony to punch like that. He raises his hand to admire Tony's handiwork and feel the tender skin, but Tony's hand pulls back at the possibility of their fingers touching.

"I'm so sorry." Tony swallows and finally looks away from Steve's face. "I really don't know what came over me."

_I know,_ Steve thinks. _It's what I said. It's what you didn't want to hear._ "It's not a big deal," is what actually comes out.

"Really, Steve, there was no reason for me to do that, I can't even get—"

“Tony, _it's fine_ , I'm fine." He doesn't know how many ways he has to say that, but it has to be enough. Tony only did what Steve asked for. And now Tony's suffering, undressed for the weather he just walked through and unhealthy enough to keel over at any point. "Are you ok?"

“Am _I_ ok? Steve, you have a fucking bruise.” Tony's voice is straying into hysterical.

"Happens all the time in my day job," Steve jokes, lamely, in an attempt to cut through the tension.

It's Tony, staring like he's seen a ghost, that reminds Steve that was his first attempt at humor in months.

Steve continues on, like nothing has happened. "Plus, I'm not the one who just walked a mile in single digit weather wearing nothing but a sweater."

Tony shakes his head and does that thing they've been doing all day–he pretends the loss is a win and doesn't harp on the subject. "I always forget how cold _cold_ is."

"You don't up here, that's for sure." Steve looks out the window and the frost covering the asphalt.

"You could have gone to Hawaii, Steve," Tony whines.

"On my bike?"

Tony shakes his head, already exacerbated with Steve. "Ok, Mexico. Really anywhere warm. What happened?"

Steve thinks back to all the times he missed each exit ramp into Chicago, always telling himself that he'd take the next one; he remembers calling Sam to tell him he wasn't coming to visit, after all. "I'm just seeing the county. Even the cold parts."

Tony doesn't believe him, but he doesn't have to, he just has to not bring it up again. "Did you know that McDonald's serves breakfast all day now?" he asks, doing his part and switching to an entirely different line of thought. He holds up the McMuffin while waving to darkness outside to prove his point.

Steve exaggerates a frown. "Have you ever even eaten at a McDonald's before?" He picks up the McMuffin. It's cold already, but he takes a bite anyway. He hasn't eaten since breakfast and it'll do. "Why did you even order this?"

"It sounded better than a cheeseburger." Tony shrugs.

"Was it?" He takes another bite then decides to just finish the thing.

Tony doesn't look particularly upset with losing his dinner and he picks up one of his discarded napkins and wipes his nose. "I don't want to find out."

"You need something more bland. We'll stop somewhere." Steve says it before he realizes Tony never said anything about wanting to stay with him. "We'll pick something up on the way to Milwaukee," is what he says to amend the thought. "That way you can get on a flight with something in your stomach."

"Why do I have a feeling you won't be getting on this flight?" Tony looks out the window and the passing headlights from the highway light up his face in something that approximates a real rhythm. If Steve just looks at this eyes, he can almost pretend they're out dancing.

"Tony, you need to be–" Steve cuts himself off from finishing that statement with _anywhere but here._

Tony stands up and begins picking up his collection of rumpled napkins and piling them onto his tray. "Sleeping. I need to be _sleeping_. So, why don't we get back to the motel. Where do you want to go tomorrow?" He walks away, tossing everything besides the tray into the trash and going for the door without waiting for Steve to follow. Given that he has no choice, Steve runs behind him, discovering Tony hasn't stopped talking. "I think we should go north tomorrow. Maybe meet some locals, no hurry, of course–"

He's already gotten on the back of Steve's bike before Steve gets a chance to interrupt him. "So, you're staying?" he asks, feeling hopeful and defeated at the same time.

"Of course I'm staying, and if you ask that again I'm getting ‘if lost, return to Steve Rogers’ tattooed somewhere obvious so you can never get rid of me again."

Steve somehow manages to climb over the seat in front of Tony. "I would prefer you didn't do that. I don't want to wake up to the Mandarin on my doorstep some morning."

"Then stop asking dumb questions." Tony wraps his arms around Steve's waist and settles in flush with his back. It feels like the worst kind of comforting in the frigid cold, but Steve kicks off and they're on the road, back to where they came from.

Tony manages not to slip off the bike and walk into the motel room under his own power. He does, however, fall immediately onto the bed.

"Mmmmmm.… Missed you," he mumbles into the unmade bedspread. Steve can barely believe it was only this morning that he was sitting across from Tony in the diner.

Without being asked, and possibly against good judgement, Steve helps Tony undress and slip underneath the blanket. Tony lets him for some reason. He looks so peaceful in his exhaustion, and Steve kicks himself for feeling envious. "I'm going to grab a smoke outside."

Tony nods and curls around himself, already too close to sleep to care. "G'night, Steve."

"G'night, Tony," Steve responds before stepping out the door into the cold wind, lights a cigarette, and feels in control for the first time since this morning.

 

* * *

 

Sleep comes easy, but waking up does not, despite Tony's full bladder and the sun streaming in through the dusty windows. He's sure he can feel every muscle in his body; all of them hurt with activity that Tony hasn't accomplished. His head pounds, right at the base of his neck, and he's distinctly aware that he's thirsty in a way which will require electrolytes.

Beside him, the bed remains made and only a little crease in the blanket betrays that anyone has even sat on it. Steve, of course, is nowhere to been seen, though the warm humid air escaping from the now open bathroom door is comforting—someone, more likely Steve than a serial killer, recently showered and couldn't have gotten far.

For the life of him, Tony cannot remember the last time he was this sore. Somehow, possibly in the adrenaline of the last couple of days, he'd been spared the reminders of his unused body. Not anymore.

It takes shaky attempts to lift himself off of the bed, and that's when he learns he needs all of these muscles to stay upright. It takes twice as long as it should, but he relieves himself, finds some clothes to pull over the long underwear he's wearing, and slips on his shoes without looking for fresh socks.

A flash of cold air hits him when he opens the door, a complete contrast to the overzealous heating unit inside. Steve's right where Tony expected to see him—leaning against the wall, smoking, with wet hair, leather jacket, and all. He drops the cigarette and stomps it out with all the casualness of a teenager caught on the back porch.

"I hope I didn't wake you," Steve says finding a spot across the parking lot to focus on after he's gotten over the shock of seeing Tony moving under his own power.

It's very possible Steve closed the door just hard enough that it jolted Tony awake, but it's a detail that that doesn't matter at all. That seems to be Steve these days, focused on the small stuff. "So what if you did? I needed to get up. It's already…" he trails off to let Steve finish for him

"Seven AM."

"Seven AM, then. Great time to be awake." Honestly, Tony would give a small fortune to go back inside, crawl underneath the warm blanket, and sleep for the rest to the day, but that's not what he needs right now. "Couldn't sleep? Please tell me you haven't been out here, smoking all night."

Steve picks up the crushed cigarette butt on asphalt and shoves it in his pants pocket. The smell lingers in the air, however. Tony's sure the craving he's feeling is more the need to indulge in something bad for him than it is for nicotine. Maybe it has something to do with how it smells on Steve. "Naw. I watched the Food Network a little, too."

Tony wants to admonish him _. you need to sleep,_ he wants to say, but the next words are _you need to talk_ and then _you need to go home_. Tony doesn't even want to explore that last line of thought. "Nightmares?" He asks, knowing he's skirting the edge of their no-talking agreement.

Steve actually grunts his affirmative response, like some parody of a middle age man. Tony can hear him fidgeting with the cigarette pack in his pocket.

Tony supposes that's as much he's going to get from Steve, but he has a nightmare of his own that he needs to talk about. "I had one last night. In it, I was down in that subway station Sam had been using to move Inhumans into Canada. Then, of course, all of the lights turn off and I have to fix it, except… I can't. Everyone's standing around waiting for me to figure it out, except for some reason, it isn't working, and I'm the only one who understands how electricity works." It had still been dark in the tunnel when he woke up. Tony could guess why.

Steve regards him, as if he's trying to find the meaning behind Tony's dream and missed a class on basic symbolism. "Tony, you shouldn't remember that. You were still in a coma."

That's also a reason to be confused, Tony thinks. "Guess I must have seen it somewhere."

Steve's quiet. "I didn't realize that had been public knowledge."

Tony's not sure if it is, in fact, public knowledge. He hasn't had enough time to fully understand the media narrative of Hydra's America. He knows he hasn't actually seen it with his two eyes, but he's sure of every part of the tunnel as if he had been there. He's sure in the way he was when he knew exactly where to find Steve and that the woman at the motel front desk hated the idea of them sharing a bed for entirely different reasons than Tony did. He just… knew.

That awareness is making it harder and harder to pretend that he came back from his coma with just exceptional intuition.

"I’ve been thinking about my ma," Steve says, out of nowhere and breaking Tony out of his thought process. "My dad, uh… he locked her in the bathroom one time. It must have been right before he left. I don't know, I was so young. I didn't even realize I remembered _that_."

Tony goes still, the cold continuing to seep into his skin. At this point, Steve's said more words about his father in the last minute than he has in their entire relationship. He isn't prepared, and he struggles with something to say beyond, "Steve…"

"My grandad had to pry open the door. That's what I always remembered about it. Not the fact that he left but that the door never closed right after that. He died maybe six months later. There may have been a funeral, but…" Steve shrugs.

"I didn't know," Tony says because it's the truth and it's all he's got. His brain begins to transport him to a familiar place. Violent alcoholic dads, nothing quite like them.

"That’s all I remember," Steve continues. "Just my grandad trying to tear the door from its hinges. Ma never cried. Probably would have forgiven him, too, with enough time." He pulls a lighter out and mindlessly strikes it. "I guess I'll never find out."

"You miss her?"

"Everyday I was in Kobik's dreamscape I thought about her." Steve returns the lighter to his pocket and crosses his arms. Tony feels Steve's chill. "Anyway, I dreamt of the prison I… no, _he_ shoved Sharon into."

"Oh," Tony says, momentarily speechless. In that moment he feels exhaustion overwhelm him, but not just from his broken body. He feels in over his head, lost with only a broken compass. With the heavy weight of his own fatigue on him, the cold amplifies through his clothing and makes him shiver.

Steve must see him clench up against the freezing air, because he pulls off his leather jacket and drapes it across Tony's back. "We should go inside," Steve mumbles and makes no effort to go for the door.

"I'm fine," Tony protests, despite the fact that he's definitely not. He still hasn't zipped up the jacket, letting the cold in. It's a pride thing. With Steve, it's always a pride thing.

“I really am sorry, by the way.”

Tony's head snaps up from where it's resting on his chest. "I thought we dealt with this alrea–"

"I shouldn't have said that to you." Steve's voice is distant, focused on something outside of Tony's view.

There must be a world out there where Tony responds, _"Yes, you really should've,"_ and winds his fingers in Steve's hair before pulling him into a kiss, but it isn't this world. This world is grey skies and biting wind and rough sheets. In this world, Tony says, "It's not a big deal," and hopes Steve won't push.

At least, in this world, Steve doesn't.

It's not that Tony doesn't think Steve believes he loves him. To Steve, that must be a comforting thought—that at the core of everything good and everything bad about their relationship—there is love. That must've helped, distilling it to something so simple and universal, like _The Theory of Captain America and Iron Man._

Maybe that's how Reed did it, and just let the easiest answer be the right one. Reed had always been the better theoretician.

Love is a banal word for whatever’s going on between the two of them. It's a disgusting way of saying _this defies logic._ Tony's a practical man, and love gives him nothing to work with. Not when Steve thinks he can love a man who avoided his own best friend's funeral. Not when Tony's always betrayed the good will between them.

Tony hunches over and wraps the jacket around him. It smells like cigarettes and whatever cheap deodorant Steve's switched to. It's comforting for no reason that makes sense.

Steve's leaning against the brick wall with nothing but a t-shirt on. Tony has no idea how he can stand it. "You're right, we should get warm." He grabs Steve's wrist and slowly pulls him with him, and for a second there's a moment of closeness. All he would have to do is slide his hand a few inches, into Steve's, and they'd be joined.

Steve shakes him off, and follows him inside.

 

* * *

 

They check out a half hour after that. Steve's a professional at this, it seems, and by the time he's ready to get on the road, Tony's barely dressed.

They don't stay on the road for long and Tony's glad for it. Holding on wears him down and the cold, despite Steve's shielding, quickly upgrades from _bracing_ to _unbearable_ in minutes. How Steve is managing to get through it, Tony doesn't know.

Still, it's Steve who decides it's time to pull over and check in at a Motel 6, freeing him from having to say something about not being able to feel most of his extremities. From the looks of it, they managed to find some civilization, and a road sign right before they turned off advertises a place with actual people one mile north.

It's still morning, and while the receptionist is quick to remind them check in time is three PM, she agrees to everything anyway and provides them a room with two separate beds. This motel advertises a continental breakfast, but beside that, it feels just like the last one, right down to the overworked external heating unit and faded bedspread.

Tony needs a shower—a long, drawn out, testing-the-limits-of-the-water-heater shower. Steve's been mumbling something about breakfast, but it turns Tony's stomach every time he mentions anything food related, so Tony just avoids the fight altogether and goes straight for the bathroom.

When he gets out, leaving a cloud of steam in his wake, Steve's sitting on the bed and studying something closely on the wall across from him. Tony tries to think of something clever or funny to say, anything that would relax the tension in Steve's shoulders, but even thinking about it feels exhausting, so he doesn't. Steve, for his part, only acknowledges his presence by standing up, walking outside, and shutting the door.

With a huff, Tony finds his old clothes and tugs them on. They go on easier than they did this morning and Tony praises the restorative powers of a shower. Tony knows this is temporary, it's not as if he doesn't understand the stress his body's been under. He understands the science behind why his muscles feel useless, but that doesn't mean he likes it, or is even going to defer to it.

If he slams the door when he leaves the motel room, he doesn't mean to. It's just his newfound strength. But Steve, standing beside the door, snaps to attention when he does and that's worth it. Without telling Steve his plan, he walks to bike and gets on in such a position that Steve has to slide on behind him. Tony doesn't feel him smile into his back, like he wishes he would, but Steve grabs on anyway.

It's barely a drive before they're downtown some place where 'downtown' means something very different to Tony. He parks the bike in front of a small gift-card store and surveys the two blocks of businesses they can possibly visit. He spots it right away, a small diner that will satisfy Steve's appetite, and has a big enough window Tony can look outside while he pushes his food around his plate.

"This town's cute," Tony says, because that seems like a thing people say. His only real benchmark is Broxton.

"It's fine." Steve's quiet as he follows Tony down the sidewalk.

"Oh come on, Steve. They have little flags and old-timey street lights!" He mentions the last one in the hope of annoying Steve enough he'll take the time to explain how not period-accurate the town's attempt is. "I thought you'd appreciate the Americana charm." Tony mostly appreciates that he's walking easily by himself, but it somehow dissipates into everything else.

Steve grunts as Tony opens the door for them to walk inside. He's hit with the strong smell of frying bacon and it doesn't make him want to puke. It doesn't make him hungry, either, but it's a change.

"Mmmmm, what're you going to get?" Tony asks as he watches Steve's eyes take in the menu. Watching Steve be hungry is almost as good as being hungry, even if it's also just a pale imitation of Steve looking ok _. At least he's eating,_ he thinks.

"Everything," Steve responds, but without any lightness or joy, just the barest intonation that suggests he's even talking to another person.

Tony sighs and watches as an old couple chats comfortably a few booths away.

Steve had always been a world-class sulker, probably some side effect of being superhumanly stubborn. Tony would be worried if Steve _wasn't_ sulking.

But Steve sulks his way through his steak-eggs-pancake uber-breakfast, and he sulks his way through making sure Tony actually orders something, and he sulks his way as he waits for the check, and it is just _too much._

Tony thinks back to last night and Steve's forced attempt to cheer him up. It had been something, hadn’t it? And that time he smiled, yesterday morning, before the decided to grab breakfast. He had seemed calm, then, almost light, maybe even something approaching care-free.

And that's when Tony has the idea.

"We should get you laid," he announces, maybe a little louder than he should in a place where the current clientele's average age is closer to Steve's than his own. He hates the way the words tumble out of his mouth like he's an overgrown frat-boy helping his friend through a recent breakup the only way he knows how.

Steve jumps enough that he spills a little of his water down his shirt.

Tony forges on now that he has a plan settled in place. "You said sex helps, and it's been a while—"

"Two days," Steve butts in to say. He's giving Tony A Look, something at least reminiscent of Captain America.

"And who's counting?" Tony certainly isn't. He doesn't care. "Why don't we find you someone nice tonight? It might help you unwind. I'm a great wingman." See, it’s easy. That's how much Tony doesn't care.

"I don't think it's a great idea," Steve says, his eyes still wide with surprise.

"Oh, _come on,_ Steve. You have needs, that's nothing to be ashamed of." At least, Tony hopes he doesn't feel ashamed of needing someone. Tony, on the other hand... well, these things are complicated. He's working on it. He's _been_ working on it for more than a decade.

Steve studies his empty coffee cup and Tony catches him when he glances at Tony's, still filled to the brim. He looks unhappy, but in different kind of unhappy than he had been before--more morose than angry. "I just..." he starts to say and for the first time since he's opened his mouth, Tony's thinks he may have kinda sorta stepped over the line.

So Tony keeps his mouth moving. "Steve, it's nothing, really, I _want_ this for you." Tony also wants for this conversation to end and it to already be tomorrow morning when Steve's jaw is just a little more relaxed.

"You really don't get it, do you?" Steve snaps and stands up so quickly the table wobbles. About twenty different things Tony definitely doesn't _get_ flash through his mind, but about two thirds of them make him want to hit things, so he sits quietly in the booth. That must be the last straw, because Steve sets his stance and looks straight on like something closer to Captain America. "Fine. Whatever you want, Tony."

"Great!" Tony says and really tries to mean it.

 

* * *

 

It turns out there isn't a lot else to do around here. They walk around the town for fifteen minutes and return back to the motel room. Tony lays down and hopes he doesn't fall asleep, but when he does, he must not miss much. Steve oscillates from shuffling his pack of cards and going outside to smoke. At some point Tony wakes up to the smell of food, but he's not interested enough to figure out exactly what Steve's eating. He can feel his body need food, but the actual act of eating still feels above his ability.

Not that it matters, because the rush of energy he experienced this morning goes as quickly as it came and he falls back asleep. Sometimes he wakes up to Steve watching cooking shows, and sometimes he just knows Steve's nearby because of the shadow he casts from outside the window. The knowledge that he's close does something for Tony, however. He feels protected and ashamed that he needs to know Steve is standing sentinel at his door.

Eventually it's dread, not the showdown-with-the-Mandarin kind, but the please-don't-make-me-attend-this-event-in-my-father's-honor kind, that wakes him up for good with a burst of grossly nervous energy.

It's dark outside and Steve's rummaging through his backpack. Tony swears he sees him tuck a few foil wrappers in his back pocket. Tony had been so stupid. Of course, Steve's going to go through with it, even if he looks like he rather be doing anything but getting ready to go out.

"How do I look?" Steve asks with a growl, hands aggressively placed on his hips.

It isn't as if much has changed, but there are little details in his outfit that betray he's actually trying, like his now clean t-shirt that must have been washed as Tony slept, or his fresh shave that's removed the rough stubble from before.

"Good." Tony swallows around the word and the sound barely makes it past his throat. "The ladies won't know what hit them."

The image of those perfectly fitted jeans pulled down to Steve's thighs as he fucks some faceless woman behind one of those charming little buildings in town jumps into Tony's mind without needing any encouragement. His dick's masochist streak just fills in the details-how her shirt would be shucked up around her hips, how she'd be whispering 'more' on repeat, how Steve would bite into her shoulder when he came. Gross, blood-curdling desire hotly sits on Tony's skin and he couldn't begin to untangle any of it. He's one of the smartest people in the world, and his best answer to this problem is to run through armor schematics.

Steve huffs like he's about to protest and Tony prays to any one of the gods he's ever fought beside that Steve will just say, _I don't want to do this,_ and Tony would respond with, _then don't,_ but Steve just turns on his heel and gathers up Tony's jacket.

Tony feels hopelessly confused for a second; it's like waking up to find out that Captain America had done a stint as a fascist dictator, but then he remembers that he had offered to be Steve's wingman.

See? He's so incredibly, awfully, stupid.

 

* * *

 

It's Tony that picks out the bar, in that he tells Steve to turn into the first one they see. "No," Steve says, firm and loud even with the wind of the road roaring over him as he passes the place up. "No bars."

"What the hell did you think we're going to do?" Tony shouts into his ear.

"No. Bars." They pass a third. There are a remarkable amount of places to drink here, Tony notes, and then hates himself a little for noting it.

They don't have much of a choice. The only thing open this late had neon signs advertising brand name beers. Tony had actually thought a little about this part of the plan, and his decision was simple: "it's not going to be a problem Steve, I can barely keep down coffee, drinking is the last thing I want to do." It's a lie, the actual last thing he wants to do is a cross between facing Rhodey's mom and watching as Steve slips away with another person. The truth is drinking sounds like a great idea at the moment.

Steve doesn't like pulling into the parking lot, he makes it pretty clear, but he does it anyway. Tony can't help but feel like they're playing a high stakes game of chicken. That's ok, because Tony's going to win and Steve's going to have sex with someone who isn't him and maybe he'll smile again.

The bar's lit up in Christmas lights and decorated with a not very tasteful amount of green and yellow football calendars and St. Paulie's Girl posters. It looks homey with regulars drinking at the bar and truck drivers huddled over some high-topped tables. A strong wave of nostalgia overcomes him, even if this was never the sort of place he drank. Alcohol can have that effect.

The longer he waits the harder this is going to be, so he strides up to the bartender with Steve at his heels and orders a screwdriver-but-hold-the-vodka. She looks back at him like Tony is failing to be clever, but begins to pour him some cheap orange juice out of a cloudy plastic carafe. After she hands it over, Tony points behind him to Steve's solid frame. "He'd like a beer."

The bartender now definitely thinks he's an idiot. She looks at Steve and asks, "preferences, sweetheart?"

"A Coke is fine," Steve grits out and the bartender rolls her eyes at the clearly confused out-of-towners. Steve slaps a twenty on the table and takes his drink to a small table in the corner. Tony follows and feels uncomfortably stupid.

It takes all of five minutes of standing together, awkward and silent, before two pretty women approach them with Steve as their singular focus. It takes another ten minutes for one of them to have somehow drawn Steve into a dark corner to talk, leaving Tony with her very nice and perfectly fine friend to talk to.

"What do you do?" Kathy asks him, her fourth attempt at making conversation.

Tony wrests his attention from watching the way Steve's nodding at whatever his new friend is saying. "I, uh…" Tony tries to think of the best lie he has, but he struggles to come up with anything. "Teach," he tries. It's generic enough, right? Plus, working with the young new Avengers had been one of the more fulfilling things he's done in the last couple years, even if he ended up letting them down just like everyone else.

"So does Gabby!" Kathy points at her friend talking with Steve. _I knew that_ , Tony thinks. He's not sure how, but he knows it like he's knows Gabby volunteers at a animal shelter on the weekend. She just radiates pure good on top of being rather pretty. Really just the exact opposite of Tony, with his patchy hair that's only starting to grow back, a complete lack of muscular definition, and a list of failures he can only partially remember.

He can't tear his eyes off of the way Gabby touches Steve's shoulder. Why does she have to be so pretty? And sweet? And just… good?

Steve's talking to her with all the disinterest he brings to everything right now, but he hasn't stepped away. And then, Tony sees it–the moment Steve must decided that he's actually interested, because he gives her A Look. It's not heat, exactly, there's no promise of anything behind it. It just exudes the potential for heat and promises, like Steve may be thinking about going through with their plan.

Kathy says something but Tony doesn't hear. He does hear Gabby laugh at something Steve says that Tony is sure isn't actually funny, and that's what makes him do it.

Tony's not proud of a lot of things he's done in his life, but most of them can be chalked up to 'for the greater good' and 'I'm an alcoholic'.

This is not one of those times.

Tony stands up and grabs his mostly full glass of gross orange juice. Everything happens fast and without much thought after that.

He's about to join their conversation when he stumbles right into Steve's stiff form. The orange juice he was holding ends up everywhere–but mostly all over his sweater and Steve's perfect white shirt.

Gabby gasps and jumps away, leaving Tony alone where's he's smashed into Steve. The drinks drips between them, uncomfortably cold, and it's Steve that has to push him off until he's steady on his feet.

They're silent, Tony's eyes glued to the puddle on the floor, and Steve's arm holding him tight by the shoulder. Tony has no doubt that Steve knows exactly what just happened, it's in the firm way Steve's standing.

The bartender shoves a mop between them a few minutes later and Tony finally has to step away. His breath is coming out in short gasps and a rich form of shame has solidified all over his skin. This had been his own fucking idea, and now…

"I'm so sorry," he whispers and finally looks up to see Steve watching him.

"Don't be."

Tony can still feel where his body had been flush with Steve's chest, a burn that might never heal.

"We should go home."

 

* * *

 

Home is the motel room, now, but the two mile drive back feels long enough that it might as well be in New York. Tony tries to avoid holding Steve tight in a not well thought-out attempt to not make everything worse. The likely result is that Steve drives slower than Tony thought Steve was capable of.

The entire time, neither of them say anything. Tony doesn’t want answers to questions he's not particularly in the mood to ask and from the way Steve opens the door but stops in order to let Tony go in alone, Steve looks particularly glad to avoid.

The warm air inside is just another reason to get his distance, so Tony goes straight for the shower. His skin feels gross where the juice had seeped through his sweater. The cold stickiness washes off easily, but the deep feeling of shame doesn't, and Tony knows at some point he's going to have to leave the stream of scalding water and pretend nothing happened.

He knows that's what Steve plans on doing.

It's the lightheaded feeling he can no longer ignore that gets him to leave, and it's begrudgingly that he wraps a towel around his waist and steps out of the shower. To get away from humid air, he opens the bathroom door, making breathing a little more bearable. Or it would more bearable of the thing waiting outside the door was anything other than Steve, wearing that goddamn stained shirt.

Tony turns around, overacts looking for his toothbrush, and when he can't find it, washes his face instead. When he's done and looks up to the mirror to survey his own gaunt features, his attention catches Steve in the corner of the room, peeling off his clothes and leaving them on the floor.

It's nothing more than habit and an inclination to masochism that makes it impossible for Tony to look away from the way Steve's abs contract as he lifts his shirt over his head, or how the elastic waistband of his boxers catches on his jeans as his pulls them down, leaving a split second where Tony's sure they will also end up on the floor.

Tony feels like he needs another shower, sick with the want and the shame and everything else that he's tied up into Steve. The hopes and the dreams and the stolen glances are intertwined with Tony's lies and Steve's agression, a perfect knot never meant to be unraveled.

As if he knows his cue, Steve looks up then and catches his eyes through the mirror. Everything Tony's feeling grows exponentially when he sees those blue eyes on him; Steve's gaze is, as always, a physical force, one Tony feels on his naked back, one he's always craved even when he hasn't deserved it.

Time stops, elongating the seconds before Steve is going to slam the door and drive far, far, away. Tony's ruined everything, and maybe this time there will be no getting better.

Steve steps forward, never breaking eye contact, even as he leans against the bathroom doorway, and Tony waits for the inevitable.

"Tony," Steve whispers. The name gets stuck in his throat, like it's a sob, and Steve swallows it down before continuing. "It can't just be me. I can't be the only one who feels this way."

What exactly Steve means by "this way", Tony doesn't know, but apparently it doesn't involve shouting, so Tony's stunned.

Steve's still watching him from behind and there's that look again. It's all potential and questions and possibility. Steve _wants_ him, all one hundred and sixty atrophied pounds of him, and he's deciding if it's something he's going to go through with.

Tony opens his mouth to say something, but he's never heard a language that had the words for the things he want to communicate, so his mouth stays open.

"Tony…" Steve steps forward until Tony feels his body heat and several stray chest hairs against his bare back. Tony keeps staring through the mirror and he knows Steve waiting for an answer to his question. When Tony doesn't answer, he wraps his arm around Tony's chest in an awkward backward hug that leaves Steve leaning his chin on Tony's shoulder. Tony can feel his breath against his ear.

In this position Steve's holding him straight against his back and Tony can experience every one of those perfect muscles. Steve's hand, spayed wide across his side, feels just as strong against his diminished frame.

Tony holds on to Steve's arm and tries to tell himself he still has no idea what Steve means. He holds onto it for dear life until he can't, until all he can think of is turning around and telling Steve he feels the same way, until he decides to pull Steve's arm downward until his fingertips graze the top of the towel wrapped tight around Tony's waist.

Steve's breath hitches against the frail hair at the base of his scalp, and Tony just keeps pulling him lower and lower, watching as Steve's big, trembling, hand begins to disappear under the towel. His skin shivers, suddenly sensitive to everything and it seems to Tony as if he can feel every groove that makes up Steve's finger prints.

Steve stops when he grazes the base of Tony's half-hard dick. Tony gasps at the contact, but Steve follows with nothing, just leaves the situation as it is, with his erection poking into the flesh of Tony's ass, and his hand not far enough.

Tony tries to parse out the problem, but he's reduced to just feeling overwhelmed at how he's been pinned between Steve and the countertop. There's a decision somewhere he's supposed to make, a fork in the road after which nothing will ever be the same, but it already feels as if they've tipped over cliff.

He rocks his hips back just so Steve will decide to finally think with his cock. "Tony," he moans in a way that sounds like he's made a decision. Tony does it again and this time tugs the hand Steve has agonizingly close to his cock enough that Steve has to choose between backing out and touching Tony where it really matters.

Screw the ridges of Steve's fingertips, Tony can feel the way the atoms of Steve's hand vibrate against the sensitive skin of his dick. Tony's head drops so that he has a perfect view of where Steve has taken him in hand. Steve moves his wrist, slowly, too slowly, and Tony's eyes close as all of the air rushes out of him.

The towel falls without either of them intending it to and Tony's left completely naked. Steve's moving, enough that the cotton of his boxers is rubbing against the bottom of Tony's ass; enough that Tony can feel how much Steve is holding back.

Steve’s hand runs up and down Tony's dick, twisting with the upstroke, and squeezing gently as he gets closer to the base. Tony's not sure if this is a technique that Steve keeps to himself or one he's been demonstrating to everyone on the Great Lakes, but it's good. Just this morning, Steve had to be heavily persuaded into the idea that sex might be just what he needed, but now, as Steve ruts against him, Tony feels like the best kind of outlet.

It's slow and heady, making Tony sink against Steve's chest while leaning his weight against the counter. His body is just remembering what sex even is and his dick is slow to respond, but that only makes each touch more overwhelming. He wants Steve to touch him in a way that transcends the physical, he wants Steve to touch him because the conversation they should be having is beyond him.

Steve kisses the spot on his neck where Tony's barely grown hair gives way to skin and that's when Tony decides he's had enough.

He reaches behind him, twisting only as much as he needs, and slips his hand through the slit in Steve's boxers. Even with only his sense of touch, Tony can tell Steve's cock is like the rest of him—perfect. He's big; thick enough that Tony struggles to wrap his entire hand around him and his wrist strains with the effort.

Steve's forehead drops to Tony's shoulder. The sound of Tony's name vibrates against his skin in a way Tony feels in his dick. He moves his hand, coaxing Steve to say it again, relishing in the way he does it louder.

Panic replaces pride, however, when the strain and weakness in Tony's muscles begins to force him to loosen his grip. _You can just turn around,_ his brain tells him, but Tony can see enough snatches of Steve's face in the mirror in front of him, he's not sure if he can handle any more. He opts for something else and licks a long strip down his hand, making it as wet and obscene as he can before again grabbing Steve's cock and giving it a few tugs just to enjoy the easier slide. He bends over slightly, knowing that Steve will keep him upright, and lines Steve up between the top of his thighs.

Steve must misunderstand him because he pulls away. "I'm not sure that's a great idea," he says, pleasure mostly a memory in his voice.

Tony's body is too messed up for anal sex and he shakes his head at the thought. "Definitely not," he protests, wanting to save the rapidly sinking situation and pulls Steve by the cock maybe a little too forcibly. Steve makes a noise, but his hips follow, and Tony lines him up again, this time with extra effort to make sure Steve knows where exactly Tony expects him to put his cock.

"Oh," Steve whispers as he slips between Tony's thighs. His hand stills on Tony's now rock-hard dick as he makes a few exploratory thrusting motions. The spit eases the way, and Steve's doesn't complain that Tony doesn't have much in the way of thighs at the moment.

He picks up the pace right around the time he seems to remember Tony has a dick and begins pumping him like he hadn't before.

Tony struggles to get enough air in his lungs and everything goes fuzzy at the edges. Steve's cock tugs at Tony's sensitive skin in away that's much more pleasant than he would've believed. Keeping his thighs tight together is more work than he has in him, and he's not sure why Steve continues as his legs drift apart, but then again Tony never really understood what Steve got out of him before, anyway.

The word _used_ drifts into Tony's mind, but it's not quite right _. Useful_ maybe is more apt; even in his weakness he feels more like a person than he has since he's woken up.

Steve kisses at his cheekbone, trying to find his lips, and Tony finally obliges him by twisting his neck enough that Steve can gasp into his mouth. Every one of Steve's trusts push his thighs into the counter, the sharp edge biting at his skin. The spit loses slickness eventually and but neither of them stops, Tony wouldn't if saving the world depended on it.

While the way Steve's touching him feels bright, it isn't until Tony's orgasm begins to creep up that he realizes he's even capable of coming. When he starts to with Steve's name silently on his lips, it's slow and drawn out and his come coats Steve's hand as he continues to pump him through it.

Tony slumps against Steve's chest, feeling no reason to keep himself up and breaks their half-kiss to so he can tell Steve, "Come for me."

Steve balls slap against that the back of Tony's thighs as he fucks Tony like he must have been holding back before. He bites Tony's shoulder as he finishes and his come drips down Tony's legs.

Time stops. It's either that or Tony passes out because he jumps a little when he feels Steve moving him. When his back hits the mattress, it occurs to him that he should say something as Steve wipes him with a warm, damp, and scratchy towel.

He falls asleep instead.


	3. Something Delicate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that earns the "canon-typical violence" tag, though I'd calibrate your level of canon-typical violence to stuff that happens in Secret Empire.
> 
> Double-extra thanks to [sheron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron) who, in addition to beta-ing and cheering me on, also made a wonderful banner for the fic that captures all of my feelings. [You can see it on the tumblr post](https://sheronwrites.tumblr.com/post/183171155809/magnetic-north)

Steve feels as if the motel room walls are closing in around him. The space between him and Tony is slowly shrinking, and he knows that if he waits long enough there will be nothing separating them.

They need the distance if they're going to survive, but last night Steve came between Tony's thighs while holding him close to his chest. He can't forget the way Tony had been pliable to his suggestion, too weak to even stand up.

And Steve knew better. Steve’s been laying here all night waiting for Tony to wake up and call a cab and never speak to him again, but he just sleeps, his presence overwhelming and infuriating. Just thinking about last night has him hard and on edge, but he pretends he isn't, too afraid if he leaves for a smoke or a cold shower, Tony will disappear.

The constant vigilance goes unrewarded, though. Steve looks away from something he had been studying on the wall and notices Tony's eyes upon him.

"Hi," Tony says, the barest hint of a sleepy smile on his voice.

"Hi." Steve's voice breaks.

Thousands of things must go through Tony's mind for the few minutes they're both quiet, but he doesn't remark on any of them, doesn't tell Steve to leave immediately. He finally turns around to look behind him at the open bathroom and speaks to the ceiling. "Last night was…"

Steve swallows, unsure how he would even finish that sentence.

Tony stands up and Steve sees the two sharp bruises on his thighs where he had been pushed into the counter. Tony looks down at where Steve's staring and lightly prods the purple skin. "Would you look at that…" he mutters under his breath.

"I'm sorry," Steve says, unable to hold it in any longer.

Tony's head snaps up. He's thinking, Steve can see it in the way his forehead crinkles. "Why?"

Steve looks down again at the bruises. He hadn't even thought about the possibility that Tony had been in pain.

"It's not… I mean, it wasn't–" Tony holds his head in his hand, and lets out a long, shaky breath. "I enjoyed myself, if that's what you're concerned about."

It doesn't look like he's lying. But it doesn't look like he's happy about it, either.

(A little voice in Steve's head tells him he wouldn't know if Tony was lying or not. Steve just hates himself a little more.)

"I did, too," Steve admits through the shame.

Tony nods in acknowledgement. He walks into the bathroom to retrieve the clothes still on the floor. "Why don't we get out of here. I'm hungry."

 

* * *

 

They end up at a chain restaurant up the highway boasting monster-sized muffins and pancakes bigger than their heads. Tony orders what looks like half the menu and manages to get through about a quarter of it. Steve watches from the other side of the table as Tony drinks an entire cup of coffee, a familiar sight that has somehow transformed into something less comfortable over the last couple of day. It's a sign of things returning to normal now that it feels like they could never go back there again.

"More coffee?" the waitress asks and then fills up Tony's cup without asking. "Everything taste alright?"

"Everything tastes _amazing,"_ Tony gushes. "I was starving."

The waitress laughs, like she doesn't hear that very much. Having tasted the food, Steve isn't surprised. "Well, I hope you come back sometime," she says and then winks at Tony.

Steve watches as she walks away. Tony's always attracted pretty women. He looks at Tony, obliviously studying a remaining slice of toast, and tells him, "I think you made her day."

Tony drops the toast, having seemingly hit his limit. "It's true. Feels like I haven't eaten in days." He falls silent, the earlier enthusiasm gone with his appetite, and Steve doesn't point out that it's been closer to months than days.

Steve had jumped at the chance to leave the motel room and it's pressure-cooker walls for good, and he had insisted they didn't return. Tony acquiesced, apparently unconcerned with where they were going to sleep next. They haven't driven past the edge of town yet and Steve can still feel his internal compass being pulled in the direction of that motel room.

He had thought that getting away would remove the feeling of imaginary grime from his skin, but sitting face to face does nothing to alleviate it.

"Where to next?" Steve asks, keeping an eye on a family just behind Tony. They're dressed in their Sunday best and Steve realizes he has no idea what day of the week it is.

"I dunno." Tony's avoiding looking at him, having found something less upsetting behind Steve and refusing to look away. It's probably the waitress. Steve hopes it isn't the waitress. "But I have a feeling that we haven't plunged the depths on just how cold it can get." His smile is weak, Steve can tell even in his peripheral vision.

"So, north?" Steve says, _as far away from the motel_ is what he thinks.

"North."

Behind him, the family gathers their things and takes their time pulling on thick winter jackets. The mother gets to one knee so she can zip up her daughter's. Just normal people, going on with their lives like America hadn't just been under the yolk of a fascist dictator. That's supposed to make Steve feel hopeful, in another time it would be the perfect anecdote about the resiliency of the American people, but Steve just sees selfish disregard. He wonders if it even affected them, if they cared about how Hydra rounded up the Inhumans, if they even supported it.

Steve used to believe the best in people. The world he woke up to has changed that.

The waitress stops by with the check. Steve isn't paying attention to what she tells Tony, he just sees that Tony smiles in a way he knows is not for him.

 

* * *

 

They stop after an hour on the road, when Steve is finally willing to admit that his fingers are numb under his gloves, and that means Tony has to be freezing. Steve almost misses the broken sign advertising not much more than a 'vacancy.' A distracted man hands them the keys as soon as they hand over some cash and then goes back to watching Maury.

Steve steps aside to light a cigarette as Tony opens the door. "Fuck," he hears Tony mutter under his breath and leans in through the doorway to seen on uncomfortable looking king sized bed.

He's not surprised. The very air between Tony and him feels different, there’s no reason the rest of the world can't tell what they've done. "We can switch—"

"It's _fine_ ," Tony grumbles and he falls face first onto the threadbare quilt. The sound it makes as he bounces isn't promising a good night's sleep.

Steve takes a quick puff before stomping out the cigarette. It's warm inside, at least.

He feels every speck of road dust that he kicked up on his skin. "I need a shower."

Instead of acknowledging that he said anything, Tony just settles himself against the backboard and grabs the remote from the bedside table. Steve hears the sound of the television as he steps under the spray of water.

He washes his hair, and then washes it again, and scrubs, and scrubs, and scrubs, until his skin is pink and it's even obvious to himself he's clean enough. The steam is the right side of suffocating after enduring the cold wind, and it takes him longer still to towel off.

In the background Steve hears the voices of whatever show Tony's watching. It's clearly not _Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives_ , so he doesn't recognize the program. Something about it makes him crave a cigarette and an escape from the room already.

Then he hears her and remembers why he hasn't been watching anything besides the Food Network. He'd recognize that voice anywhere. 

"I'm not going to comment on that," Sharon says. "Steve Rogers has earned some well deserved time out of the public eye, and–"

The reporter cuts her off. "But isn't it a little fishy that he'd disappear under these circumstances? Plus, I imagine it must be difficult given your past relationship."

Sharon's quiet for a second. Steve never wants to see it, but he imagines Sharon pursing her lips and debating whether to strike. "I have no comment," she says instead, because she represents something bigger than herself and she's the one who's strong enough to stay put and move on.

Steve opens the door and Tony flips the television off before Steve has to hear anymore. It's a small comfort, a sign that Tony is trying, that he notices, that he cares. But the evasive gesture still causes a hot, tense anger to settle on Steve's shoulders. He doesn't like that Tony has to hide things from him and he doesn't like that Tony is completely capable of doing it.

He doesn't like that that is just how it _is_ between them now.

Tony's sitting on the edge of the bed, looking guilty as he plays at searching for something new to wear in their bag to give him the appearance of doing anything else besides protecting Steve from himself. He's shucked off his pants and long underwear, leaving his bruised legs obvious to the world.

Steve hates himself even more than before. He used to revel in his strength, but the evidence of its destruction is all around the country and right in front of him.

Tony looks up at him when he cannot continue the ruse anymore. Steve sees his eyes and he just wants it to go away, to be done and gone and over and the only way he knows how is to drop to his knees, only far enough from Tony that he'd have to reach forward to touch him. It’s the only way he can think of to quiet his mind.

"Steve, you don't have to…" Tony gasps, like he knows what Steve's going to do before even Steve does.

At this distance the bruises look even larger, two sickly purple lines where Tony had been repeatedly pushed into the counter.

It had been the best sex Steve had had in a long time. It had been the first time he'd felt close to anyone since Pleasant Hill.

Steve shuffles closer until Tony parts his thighs and he finds a spot between his knees. He can't help but notice that Tony spreads wide, remembering the guilty way Tony had admitted he had enjoyed the night before. Steve internally promises himself as he keeps his hands firmly on the floor, not even daring to touch Tony's legs and hurt him again. He hopes Tony knows that.

Tony leans back on his hands. "It might take a while," he confesses, nodding down at his barely hard cock underneath his boxers. Steve understands Tony is still recovering. Bodies are like that, slow on the uptake and rarely what you actually need when you need it. He doesn't mind one bit if he's on his knees until they're numb.

Steve lifts his hands off the scratchy carpet and, as gently as possible, tugs at the band of Tony's boxers. Tony lifts himself off the bed enough that Steve can pull them down. With a delicacy he has to force, Steve lifts each foot to slide then off, taking care even to fold them and place them aside.

Right in front of him, Tony's cock is making a valiant effort at being aroused, but it's nothing compared to way Steve's is standing straight against the towel around his waist. He puts his hands back on the carpet and far from the temptation to touch himself, and without looking up at Tony he bends forward, dips his head, and mouths at the tip of Tony's half hard cock.

Tony goes tense above him, his breath caught in his lungs, and pushes forward enough that Steve has to stretch his jaw to accommodate him. Steve takes him even farther and listens to the way Tony's breathing changes as his erection grows.

It sounds like Tony wants to say something, the beginnings of words keep escaping him but they're never finished with anything coherent. Steve begins to move his mouth once Tony's hard enough to maneuver, and he makes it slow just so Tony is reassured that Steve's in no hurry. To do so he breathes as gently as his throbbing heart will allow and keeps his eyes straight on the small pubic hairs Tony's beginning to grow back, the way they trail up almost imperceptibly to his navel. They look soft and touchable. The idea of nuzzling against them enters Steve's brain, but he ignores it like he ignores his throbbing dick or the fact Tony hasn't placed a hand on him.

They're only connected by Steve's stretched lips as he works them up and down, making it wet and a little sloppy because he hopes it distracts Tony from the fact he can't look him in the eye. Tony's broken words have dissolved into gasps and his hips are making small rutting motions. One goes a little too far, and when it hits the back of his throat, Steve can't suppress gagging.

Tony tries to pull away, but Steve's mouth follows him as he tries to breath through it. He likes the feeling of Tony's cock too much to throw in the towel. His knees are on fire and he just takes Tony farther and farther, this time ready for the way Tony's cock tickles the back of his throat. He breathes through his nose and still manages to only get enough air to stay upright. Saliva pools at the edges of his mouth, his small trickle runs down his chin.

Every little sound Tony makes and every small thrust goes right to his dick like he woke up with nerve endings in all the wrong places.

Tony's breathing has become more heavy and labored and Steve wishes he had a way to tell Tony he could just fall back on to the bed and do nothing but let Steve suck him. He pulls off a little so that he has more control of his tongue and uses it as he hollows his cheeks and makes his mouth an even better, softer, hole.

"Fuck," Tony whispers, the first thought he's completed since they started. Pride that feels like heavy gold washes over Steve, he feels it on his skin, hot and molten and too sensitive. He's scared to look up–scared to see if Tony won't look at him, scared to see if Tony won't look away. Both possibilities would be unbearable. The distance Tony held in his eyes since Steve had told him he loved him is the only thing keeping Steve's hands it his sides and not on Tony's body.

Well that, and the bruises he sees on Tony's thighs.

Steve cycles between bobbing his head up and down Tony's cock and taking it as far as he can manage for as long as he can get away with. He has no idea if the change in Tony's moans signal he's getting any closer, so he continues with as singular a focus he has. When his nose is buried in Tony's pubic hair and dots are forming in his peripheral vision, he forgets Sharon's voice pleading "no comment".

Tony taps his should and Steve flinches at the contact. "I'm going to–" Tony tells him, and Steve pulls off, but just enough that when Tony comes, it pools on his tongue.

It takes a few seconds for Steve to catch his breath, swallow, and come back to himself. Some of Tony's come has dripped out of the side of his lips, and he wipes it off with the back of his hand. Even though he can't see them, he can feel the power of Tony's eyes on him. He doesn't confirm that assumption, just pushes himself up to his feet and turns on his heel so that he never has to see Tony's face and so that Tony doesn't have to see Steve's hard dick.

Tony’s hand around his wrist stops him from getting any farther. Steve doesn’t pull or tug, he knows if he tried Tony would get hurt, so he waits standing there, staring at the wall, and hoping Tony will just forget about him.

The stubborn asshole doesn’t—he just grips harder and encourages Steve to turn around. Steve doesn’t want to twist so that he’s now standing right in front of Tony, but he does for the same reason he’s still here. Saying no to Tony has always been his problem.

“Look at me,” Tony says, and Steve rips his eyes off the peeling wallpaper behind him to see Tony sitting on the bed and staring up. His chest is still heaving and his eyes are blown; there’s a little faint hint of a post-orgasm smile on his face. “Just give me a second, okay? I didn’t realize that…” He sighs and places his hands on Steve’s hips. “I didn’t realize this is how it is, now.”

Tony’s like this—always speaking a language Steve can’t ever understand. That brilliant mind, with all the power to save the world, could be put to better use than whatever he’s doing with Steve right now. Steve’s sure he doesn’t want whatever ‘this’ is, if ‘this’ means every touch Tony gives him will crawl up his spine and remind him of every time they’ve ever tried to break each other’s bodies. But wanting something is so strange and somewhat foreign to Steve; Tony’s thumbs are mindlessly outlining his hip bones, and he both can’t stand it and doesn’t want to feel their absence.

“It could be,” Steve says when it becomes clear to himself he isn’t going to shake Tony off. It’s a question he’s asking himself, but Tony’s on his own wavelength and leans forward so that his forehead is resting against the side of Steve’s stomach.

Tony takes a few minutes to catch his own breath and Steve stands there, feeling Tony’s wet and hot breath tickle his skin. After a while he slowly begins to run his hands up and down Steve’s flanks. “I never thought I’d get to touch you like this. Your body is… something else.” It doesn’t go unnoticed that Tony says it worshipfully, but doesn’t look him in the eyes. “The sheer power in these muscles—”

Steve twists out of Tony’s grip. He wants to scream. Power? Tony has evidence of that power across his thighs; America is pockmarked with it. He steps fast enough that Tony can’t grab him before he finds where his jeans are crumpled in the corner. Tony finally makes it there right when he’s stuffing his still-hard dick into them, and he grips Steve’s wrists like his life depends on Steve staying naked. Tony’s must be repressing the desire to shout ‘what’s wrong’ given the terrified and confused look on his face. Steve tries to shrug Tony off without hurting him, but Tony’s stronger than Steve imagines.

They stand there as Steve’s gives in, broken by the belief that Tony won’t let him run away. “Are you done, now?” Tony asks when Steve slumps forward. Somehow without trying, his forehead finds Tony’s shoulder and he takes a couple of deep breaths. His brain is still sending warning signals everywhere, but he won’t outrun them. He can’t.

Tony releases one wrist and uses his now free hand to go back to tracing the ridges of Steve’s muscles. “Let’s try this again,” he mutters against Steve’s ear. With the smallest of efforts, he leads Steve back to the bed and sits back down, so that they are back into the same position as before. Tony looks up at him and Steve tries not to look down and watch as Tony gently places a kiss to the jut of Steve’s hip bone before turning and resting his cheek so that his eyes are level with Steve's dick. “You have the most beautiful cock, do you know that?” Steve tenses, but he doesn’t turn away. This comment doesn’t pain him the way Tony’s earlier observation did. “They should put it in a museum.”

"Tony," Steve groans. Tony's lips are inches away from his dick; all he would have to do is move just a little to the left and he could relieve the little tension radiating from that point.

"It's just so pretty." Tony pulls him closer and then pushes him so he falls onto the bed easily. Steve goes willingly. "Like the rest of you." He closes his eyes tight, covers them with his arm, and only feels the bed dip as Tony settles in next to him. "Such a work of art."

Steve expects Tony to add something about Erskine and Captain America, but Tony stays silent as he places a light kiss to Steve's shoulder and runs a bare open hand down across his pecs, taking time to ghost his fingertips against Steve's nipples. Steve squirms under the scrutiny. Even without seeing it, he can imagine Tony looking at him, in control but somehow still worshipful. The force of those eyes makes him feel extra sensitive, the way those hands move slowly lower and lower until they disturb Steve's pubic hair makes him feel like something special, something delicate.

When Tony's fingers curl around his dick and break the strain, Steve’s hips snap up to feel more, to feel anything. "Relax," Tony says and comforts him by running his free hand through Steve's hair. "I've got you."

Steve thinks about telling him it won't be long, that his body's been on edge since last night, that he's been waiting for Tony to touch him like this since he met him, but he's sure he couldn't open his mouth to say it even if he thought it was a good idea. Tony’s rhythm is perfect, but the wrong side of too slow, and Steve strains to not set his own pace and race to the finish.

“Steve, Steve, Steve…” Tony mutters into his shoulder. “It’s going to be ok.” His hand stills and Steve whines, always unable to take direction. Tony’s fingers drag against the underside of his cock and when a short fingernail catches on the fragile skin, Steve yelps in pain. He pants as the shock fades away and leaves him feeling even more sensitive. It reminds him that a part of his body can still break.

Tony does it again, and each time it could’ve been accident if it wasn’t for the fact he doesn’t stop. Even behind his arm, Steve scrunches his eyes to shut out any more light and breathes through the feeling over and over again until Tony stops and goes back to gripping his dick.

Anything Steve felt before has now been multiplied ten-fold. The slow movement of Tony’s hand is excruciating but brilliant, and the pleasure isn’t just in his cock, but all around his skin.

When Steve finally comes, it’s anti-climatic. He feels the familiar rush of _wonderful_ but it’s over just as fast as it happens, and Tony pumps him through the last few strokes with Steve’s come coating his hand.

The bed immediately moves as Tony leaves him. Steve keeps his eyes shut tight, for the first time he can remember, he knows Tony is going to return, and when the mattress dips under his weight, it’s confirmation of the faith Steve’s been trying to ignore.

Tony wipes him off, rustles around with something next to him, and pulls up the covers between the two of them before throwing an arm across Steve’s torso. Steve moves his arm to see that the light is now off and smells the soft crown of Tony’s hair.

It smells like nothing he’s ever known, and right now that’s all he wants around him.

 

* * *

 

It's too cold in the room. Tony pulls the felt blanket closer to him, and tries to tuck it behind him so he can stave off the draft against his back. Steve's asleep next to him, _actually asleep,_ and Tony's been internally debating himself about the benefits of getting out of bed and turning up the heat.

Tony looks beside him to where Steve's chest rises and falls and tries to make sense what goes on in that head of his. He has guesses, of course, but nothing stands out more than the way Steve had been determined to leave just because Tony had said he was _powerful_. Tony reaches out and caresses Steve's soft hair. Now that he's sleeping, Steve looks less like a superhero and more like a down-on-his-luck stranger Tony maybe would have been willing to bring home because he looked like something that was worth wanting to forget.

Tony thinks about earlier and something else stands out.

He still doesn't know why the TV turned off before he reached the remote.

It's just another little thing that doesn't have to mean anything, but at some point, most certainly will. He’s got theories rolling around in his mind sending up red flags for everything strange that’s happened since he woke up, but right now he just needs a little room to think and a lot of coffee. As quietly as he can get away with and in near silence he tugs on the pants Steve had left folded at the foot of the bed. He can't find any stationary, it's not that sort of hotel, but he does find a pen and a copy of Gideon's Bible tucked in the end table. He pulls out a page, writes a note in the margins saying he went to explore the town, and places it on the portfolio bag containing the shield. It’s the first place Steve will look. He hopes.

It's bracingly cold outside and Tony immediately regrets not taking the time to add more layers besides his pants and jacket. Sometime in the last couple of hours it started snowing, and the wind whips the fine and dusty snow against his exposed face. It takes him a block before he seriously considers turning around to return to the motel and Steve's warm body. 

He trudges on. This town's smaller than many of the others they've stayed in before, and the motel would be easily walkable to the town center in good weather. Since this is not, by anyone's definition, good weather, Tony arrives at what constitutes the center with frozen cheeks and fantasies about over-water tropical bungalows. "Downtown" is really just the crossroads of the two major highways, marked mostly by the three bars and a gas station, all advertising cheap beer.

Those bars—with their neon signs and clientele that don't care it's one in the afternoon—look as inviting as a beachside cabana. Tony can taste whiskey on his tongue, and it tastes sweet and warm and laced with pain. Nothing tastes better.

The parking lot of the gas station hasn't been plowed yet, so Tony steps through the already grey snow and into the small store. He sees it right away (not the 'beer cave', though he sees that, too) but the pots of coffee near the back. On the side of him, a group of men still in their winter gear huddle around a table and play cards; they look up as he walks past. A couple nod, the, rest return to focusing on their hands, and Tony acknowledges them with a grunt he hopes is locally acceptable.

He needs the warmth of the coffee more than he needs the caffeine and that makes the act of peeling off his gloves and holding them close to the hot pot that much better. He pours some and loves the way the cup is too thin to keep the heat off his hands.

Tony may not be feeling better-better, but the coffee seems like a semblance of normalcy in a world that's clearly off kilter. He wanders through isles, staring at the candy and emergency car gear and pauses in front of the toiletries. In his last life he wouldn't have thought about what were the condom preferences of Captain freaking America. He picks up a box knowing be probably got it wrong, but Steve would never say anything.

 _Steve's like that_ , Tony thinks. Steve's polite and kind and can deep throat like he aced a class in sucking dick. Tony pushes that last thought away and pays for his coffee and condoms and a pack of Camel cigarettes. He's prepared for the clerk to snicker, but she cheerfully rings him up without alluding to anything. Somehow that doesn't assuage the skeevy feeling in Tony's gut. "Thank you," Tony says to the store at large and stuffs the condoms and cigarettes into his pockets before savoring the way the coffee heats up his hands. It tastes burnt but he doesn't mind–the act of drinking coffee is what he's craving.

He manages to finish it in the few blocks it takes to get back to the motel.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_It's the stars that always surprise him. He doesn't know why; Steve's seen them every night, but as the first one peeks through the twilight, he can't help but be shocked._

_He's restless. Beside him his friends sleep. He knows tonight he won't join them, and as he looks at them one last time before he begins walking, he's sure he'll never see them again. The moon lights up the forest, shining through the leaves, casting the fallen branches Steve carefully avoids in an eerie glow. After a while Steve knows he has walked far enough away from his friends that he will never return. He has walked for days under this moon, he has walked for lifetimes in this forest._

_Steve is thirsty and he pats down his pockets looking for a canteen to drink out of. He doesn't find it, but his hand feels something hard, metallic, cooled in the night breeze. He picks it out of his pocket and holds the compass in his hand. It's an antique, older than Steve, older than the forest, made in a time Steve knows nothing about._

_The north arrow points to his right and he follows it. Where it leads is more important than his thirst, but he doesn't forget his dry throat, he just knows it won't matter when he finds what's in this direction._

_Then he finds her–a ephemerally beautiful, blonde woman resting her feet in a rushing creek. She looks familiar, but for everything, he can't remember her name. It doesn't matter. He knows her like he knows this moon and the stars and the compass._

_She looks at him and recognizes him, too, and the way she smiles when she sees him makes him feel big and tall, nothing like the man he actually is. "My darling boy," she says and her voice makes him want to cry. He's missed her, more than he knew when he was looking at the stars, but still he always knew she was a missing piece. She lifts her feet out of the water and stretches them. "They needed a rest." Steve knows she's talking about her feet. She works so hard and they hurt at the end of the day._

_Steve reaches out to her and pulls her up so that she standing next to him. He has to crane his neck up to look at her. It makes him feel safe for the first time since he began walking._

_She takes the compass out of his hand and begins to follow the north arrow. At first their path parallels the stream, but after a while Steve notices he can't hear the trickling water beside him. It's unnerving, but she doesn't stop walking, so Steve continues to follow and his eyes never leave the compass in her hand. They'll find a way out, he knows it._

_"Looks familiar, doesn't it?" she asks and Steve looks up to see that the trees around him have given way to buildings. They crowd him on either side, tall and strong, and like something out of an old photograph, and Steve knows exactly where he is._

_"It's home."_

_She nods and Steve watches as people pour out of the doors and from around the corners. There are faces he recognizes; no names come to mind, but he can imagine all of their histories. "Then why haven't you returned?"_

I can’t _he thinks, or is it_ I don't want to? _The air around him smells like diesel exhaust and food he can't name. It reminds him of late nights spent coughing, of someone storming up the stairs, of walking away and knowing he'll never return. His palms start to sweat. His heart races. "I shouldn't be here."_

_"There you are, boy." A man, clad in overalls and face that's seen too much, picks him up. He smells like sharp, cheap whiskey. "Been looking for you."_

_"I was lost," Steve explains._

_The man begins to walk away, still holding him. He's big, strong, nothing like Steve will ever be. "Mmmhmmm, you keep telling yourself that."_

_"We're not letting you out of our sight again," the woman says as she follows, except she's not the same woman at all. Her hair has turned brown and her clothes green. Her name is Elisa Sinclair and she said she’s going to protect them. She pets his hair and he feels precious. "You're safe here."_

_Someone screams nearby and Steve whips his head around to see a boy fighting off three large men, each wearing green, each much larger than the child._

_Steve squirms in the man's arms, trying to get his feet on the floor. "We should go–"_

_"No, no, no," the woman soothes and she tilts his face away so that he's looking straight ahead. "Don't look."_

_"But–"_

_The man grunts and just keeps on walking. "Boy never knows when to mind his own business."_

_There is one last scream and the woman hums in response. Steve stops struggling, but as he does, a hopelessness heavier than lead begins to weigh him down. It's so heavy his feet hit the floor. The man is no longer holding him; Steve's taller than him now. He's still as skinny as a beanstalk, still sick and weak, but at least he can stand on his own._

_Gunshots ring out in the darkness in one quick, coordinated blast. Steve's runs to them, unwilling to live with the knowledge he couldn't have done anything. Someone, the man, the woman, maybe both, shouts behind him and he runs and he runs until he's in an open field. Men in green form a semicircle and focus their still smoking rifles on a something tied to a tree._

_Except it's not something, it's_ someone _, but they hang limp in the ropes as their blood pools at the base of the pole they're tied to._

_"Where were you?"_

_The words ring in his head, over and over, and it's only when he looks behind him that he sees someone other than him said them. It’s Tony, looking back at him, body broken and skin bruised, like he can see into Steve's own heart._

_"I–" Steve starts to say._

_"That's no excuse," Tony replies._

_Steve looks around wildly, looking for something he knows he won't find. When he looks over to the firing squad, they shout, "Hail Hydra!" Chills run up Steve's spine._

_"Look at you. Always the bigger man." Tony's judgment is even deeper than his words, Steve can feel it in his very heart. He looks down at himself to see not the small boy, or the skinny, sick man, but power and force made flesh. He can feel it in his muscles, in the way his lungs don't tense and body doesn't hurt. "And what did that do? In the end, did your strength ever actually save anyone?"_

_"Hail Hydra!" The men behind him shout again._

_"Not much of a hero, are you?"_

Reality hits like a rotten smell; Steve wakes up with a sick stomach and cold sweat. The popcorn ceiling reminds him he's not at home and he's momentarily grateful for that.

At least, until he sees Tony curled up in an armchair in the corner.

It’s a close call, but Steve makes it to the toilet before he vomits up the contents of this morning's breakfast. The bile sticks in his throat as he tries to catch his breath and focus on his knees digging into the cold tile. He waits, and he waits, hoping Tony is still sleeping.

The sound of feet on the carpet behind him alerts him that’s not the case.

"Are you ok?" Tony asks behind him. Steve doesn't answer because he's not sure he can even open his mouth. He's still naked from before, a fact that only reminds him that Tony touched him, that _he_ touched Tony, and he feels even sicker.

His heart is racing, faster since he heard Tony’s voice, and he can’t be here in the same space with him.

He does this—every—single—time. Instead of pushing Tony away, like he should, he gives in to that need to have him close. Steve used to think of it as just needing Tony on his team, but now he knows it has always a selfish thing. The only reason he’s here with Tony is because he’s weak.

Steve lifts himself off of the floor and splashes some water on his face to wipe away the spit that’s built up in the corners of his mouth. He feels clammy and warm all-over, as if he has a fever, but time has long passed since his body actually worked like that. He refuses to look into the mirror, even in the edges of his peripheral vision, he can tell what he'll see there. Without making eye contact, he slips past where Tony is standing in the doorway and goes straight to his pile of clothes on the floor. This time Tony doesn’t try to stop him as he pulls up his pants, doesn’t lead him to the bed, doesn’t look at him with tender affection. He’s just still, mouth open and eyes wild and Steve tries not to see it out of the corner of his vision as he slips on his boots without searching for socks. Grabbing his leather jacket is more of a reflex than a need. It doesn’t matter anyway; the cold windy snow is there to help him forget everything he felt before.

He gets about a block away before he even thinks to look back and see if Tony’s following him. The door’s open, light pouring out into the night, and it silhouettes Tony’s frame as he stands in the threshold and watches Steve walk away. Steve doesn’t stop or turn back or fall into the same trap he’s been stepping into since Tony showed up in his motel room; he twists around and stomps through the calf-deep snow. It burns his bare ankles and seeps past the seams of his boots and by the time he makes it to the four-way intersection that defines the town, his legs are numb through the fabric of his jeans.

Steve steps into the first bar he sees and wipes off his soggy shoes on the entrance mat, all the while not sure what the hell he’s doing there. The patrons pretend they don’t see him. There’s no resemblance, beside the faceless people sitting around animatedly chatting, but Steve has the strongest memory of stumbling across his father drinking in some alley. Steve’s father had always been a formless cloud on his life, but in that moment Steve feels as if he could see him sitting on a bar stool in front of him, and trying to forget that he was an amoral, broken man with nothing but brute strength; trying to forget the war that gave that strength purpose.

It’s always a war for Steve. As much as he might try to pretend otherwise, he could measure his life in wars—wars against evil, wars against friends, wars for the fate of the universe, wars against himself. If he believed in it, he fought. He never gave in.

Steve sits down, orders two shots and a beer, and decides it’s time to learn something from his father. Tonight, he's done.

The bartender's clearly been doing this for a long time because he pours Steve's drinks without comment or pleasantries. Steve sifts through his pockets for cash and lines it up on the table. "Keep 'em coming," he tells him and downs both shots before starting on the beer.

Physically, none of it is going to matter. Steve knows the science behind his metabolism, he knows there's nothing for him at the bottom of his glass. But you don't relive the sins of your fathers because you believe this time, it's different.

The bartender pours again, keeps quiet, and Steve slows down enough that he's willing to look up from the football themed coaster and up at the people next to him. Everyone chats comfortably, like they do this every night; in another time Steve would appreciate the way it feels like a community. Right now, all he processes is that most of them are going to stumble into their cars as the bar closes and drive home without a second thought. They'll call it a success because they'll live to do it the next night and the night after that.

"You got a light?" a woman says next to him and Steve only gives her a quick look as he fumbles through his pocket. He's about to pull out a cheap, disposable one, when his hand curls around a box of cigarettes still wrapped in plastic. Quickly, he hands the woman the lighter and pulls out the box of Camels he knows he didn't buy. They mock him because he can imagine Tony slipping out as Steve slept today, and then him slipping back in, careful never to wake Steve up.

It's not until he hears rising voices behind him that he slips out of his thoughts. By the time he does, the bartender has placed another glass of beer next to his almost finished one.

"You heard me right," slurs a guy outside of his vision. "I miss him. I honestly miss him. He was the best thing that has happened to this country since Fight Club came out."

Steve tenses and an angry heat courses through him. "It wasn't him," someone butts into say, and Steve turns around to watch because _he knows_ who they're talking about.

"You really don't believe that shit, do you?" The first guy, still wearing his flannel lined coat, argues. Steve sees him almost accidentally hit a bottle of beer off the table. "Cause, when you think about it, it makes sense. Of course he’d want to keep America American, it’s in the fucking name. It was better. He made me proud to be an American. Without all those fucking inhumans around, he made me glad to be human. I was glad someone wanted to stop this country from turning to shit."

Steve gets to his feet without consciously thinking about what happens next. All he knows is that he has ten different ways he can wipe the grin off this guy's face and he's not picky about which one he's going to employ. It takes little effort to lift the man by his shirt so that his feet hang off the ground.

The man’s eyes bug out as his eyes track up Steve's arm until he's looking Steve right in the eye. "Woah, woah, woah, man. What're you doing?"

"I couldn't help but overhear what you were talking about," Steve starts. The bar's quiet enough that his voice easily fills the room.

"Yeah?" The guy's trying to present a brave face, but Steve's looked enough terrified men in the eye to know what he's seeing.

"Let's just say I disagree."

"And?" the guy asks when it's clear Steve's not going to budge. Recognition dawns on his face. "Wait, do I fucking know you?" He looks around wildly, for someone who's going to challenge a guy who's holding two-hundred pounds with one hand. "No, really. You look familiar."

"Never seen you in my life," Steve answers.

"Oh, god, you look just like the supreme leader—"

Steve hauls him even higher. The man tries and kicks his legs, but he's never been in a real fight, never realized he might have to disengage an opponent.

Steve, on the other hand, comes from a long line of back-alley brawlers. Even when it didn't count for anything, even when he was too fight to win, he knew how to use his fists.

His left one connects with a satisfying crack across the guy's face.

Quiet turns to pandemonium as someone, probable more than one, tries to hold him back. People shout, a woman screams. Steve doesn't tear his eyes off the guy's bloody nose. "Let's take this outside." It's no effort to shrug off everyone hanging onto him and to walk backwards until his back hits the cold door. Outside, the wind is bracing, so cold it burns, and Steve throws the guy so that he lands on his back in the snow.

People have followed them outside, but now they're silent. "What's the big deal, asshole?" the guys taunts. "You look like the fucking supreme leader. It was a compliment."

Steve's punch lands squarely where he wants it—against the side of the man's face.

"You—"

The next one hits his right cheek.

"—don't—"

Another, straight across the jaw.

"—know—"

Blood splatters dark across the snow.

"— _me_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr post](https://msermesth.tumblr.com/post/183528095644/magnetic-north)


	4. The Full Picture

"I'm up, I'm up!" Tony yells as panic rips him from sleep. He's on his feet in seconds, instantly reaching for the shoes he’s slipped off off before he dozed off on the chair. He needs to pack his things and _leave_ , and he should have been out the door minutes ago. With little care for whether he actually picks up everything he needs, he stuffs any discarded clothes and their one toothbrush into Steve's bag. He throws it over his shoulder and reaches for the portfolio case holding Steve's shield—

And stops the instant his fingers graze the leather.

Tony drops his hand and looks around. The shield's owner is still conspicuously absent. Even the feeling of him is gone. There are no loud sounds or flashing lights and nothing that indicates an earthquake. There is _no_ reason Tony should be awake right now, no reason he should be packing as if he's running from something, no reason his heart is beating like he's falling from the skies.

 _I need to find the police station_ , he thinks, but the thought isn't real, it isn't his. It's like someone said it in his head using his voice and it's strangely similar to how he knew where to find Steve days ago. Tony looks at the shield, certain it holds no answers, and he can see the police station in his mind, entirely without his control.

He feels compelled to listen to whatever is encouraging him to pack everything up and go. Something, most likely _someone_ , wants him out of town. Ideally that means with Steve. Tony grabs the shield and gives the room another look-over. "Guess I know where I'm going."

Steve had taken his keys, but it only takes Tony a couple of seconds to hotwire the ignition of the bike he left behind and get on the road into town. Tony's tries to pretend for the five minutes he's on the road that the fact that he has to stop by the police station doesn't mean anything ominous. He still doesn't succeed in not imaging the worst situation possible, and by the time he parks the bike in the freshly-plowed parking lot, he's extrapolated Steve's wild expression as Steve walked out into a dozen unacceptable scenarios.

The station's small, with only one police officer sitting at a desk this early in the morning. "What can I do for you?" she asks, and she says it like she’s trying to wake herself up. It's clearly been a long night for her.

Tony has no idea how to answer that question. "I'm looking for someone," he starts and hopes he isn't about to make their life more difficult. "Big, blond guy. Probably looks like he's had a rough year."

"Oh," she exclaims. It's not a good 'oh'. "I think I know who you're talking about. Come with me." She gathers up some paperwork and looks into her desk drawer for a key. "Your friend was a nightmare to book. I couldn't find him in _any_ database, and my computer just straight-up crashed when I submitted the form." Tony’s relieved to know Steve hasn’t left a digital trail yet, that this situation can be returned to normal.

"What'd he do?" Tony asks as he follows her. The answer doesn't really matter, Steve's here, alive, and theoretically safe. The top five of his possible outcomes are now ruled out.

"Almost killed a guy in a bar fight, fractured his skull. They had to fly the victim all the way to Green Bay."

Tony sighs and doesn't like how unsurprised he is.

The policewoman opens a room with a few small jail cells. In one, Steve's sitting on a bench, head in his hands. "Here he is. Roger Stevens."

Steve doesn't move or look up or do anything that would acknowledge that he knew someone is here to see him. Tony walks closer, glad to know Steve used a pseudonym, even if it's a very dumb one, and stops when it gets clear Steve isn't interested in knowing who he is. "How's it going, Roger?"

"How'd you know where to find me?" Steve asks, keeping his eyes to the floor and using his best 'go away' voice.

 _That's the million-dollar question,_ Tony thinks. "Lucky hunch," he says. He needs to get Steve out of here before the district’s database goes up and dozens of the world’s intelligence agencies figure out who Roger Stevens is. It’s a problem that’s only complicated by the fact that he’s pretty sure Steve doesn't want to leave, which is the first step to putting into action one of the hundred plans he's currently considering.

And then only one of those plans matter because the power goes out.

"What the--" the policewoman starts to say and Tony knows his options are limited. Before he had thought he might have been able to reason with her, make a case on how Steve’s freedom would be for the greater good. If that didn’t work, he was ready to offer enough money for her to retire on in hopes she could stay quiet. Both plans would have been tricky to implement, and left a lot of holes that could be exploited in the future.

Or they could escape like small time criminals and hopefully produce enough misdirection that no one would think twice that two rough-on-their luck drifters had ever been Captain America and Iron Man.

He goes for where he remembers there being a big ring of keys in her hand, and they both fall in a heap on the concrete floor. Without any light, it devolves into a messy fist fight with blows landing by feel more than anything else. It's not as if Tony isn't comfortable in hand-to-hand combat, it's just that he's rusty and weak and it's dark and he's sure the woman he's fighting is training to be an MMA fighter on the weekends.

"Umpfh," Tony groans when she lands an especially effective knee to his gut. He reaches again for the keys but somehow only ends up with a handful of hair.

"Stop!" Steve shouts, and goddammit, Tony could really use some help right now.

"STOP!" she screams, but Tony can't, because he no longer just hears the keys, he _feels_ them, and he's not giving up now. It’s too precarious of a plan already. He has enough sense of his own orientation to land a sharp elbow across her face and it gives him just enough time to throw the keys to Steve and his supersoldier night vision.

"Got 'em," Steve confirms at the same time she gets an arm around Tony neck. He tries to kick back but mostly ends up flailing in her grip.

"What're you...doing...Roger? Sleeping?" he gasps out in between breaths as tries to turn them around so that at least he can use the ground as leverage to push her off.

"Just a few more–got it!" Something clicks behind Tony and Steve's suddenly _there_ , pulling the policewoman away with a thud that ends with the cell door closing.

“Hey!" she yells, but neither of them respond as Steve helps Tony onto his feet. They get out the door and onto the bike and on the road in record time. Steve's now finally shrugging on his coat and his arms feel frozen from where they're wrapped around Tony as they drive down the highway. They can't stop anytime soon–if they get caught, someone is going to finally figure out who they are and undo all the work Steve’s done to lose himself.

Tony pushes the bike as fast as he knows it can go. The speed makes it possible for them to rush past the snow laden pine and empty birch trees and blurrs them together into two grey walls flanking the tight highway. The wind whips past Tony and he’s barely dressed for this, and goddammit, he needs to get even farther, faster.

He turns whenever he encounters another road, which is not often, and keeps on taking different roads until he’s sure he’ll never find their way out, but no one will find them. Just about when Tony is sure there is nothing besides snow down this path he sees a simple sign advertising ‘vacancy’ in big neon letters. He almost passes it before he slides on the icy road into the even icier, empty parking lot. The place is small, just a single floor complex against the woods that’s almost all empty and missing a few windows. But it is open, so Tony pulls a blue-skinned Steve into the small office at the end. It’s a replica of every one they’ve seen on this trip except a row of keys hang from hooks behind a surly looking man behind the front desk watching _The Price is Right_.

There’s also another thing about this place—there’s no computers and no mention of wifi. He didn’t even see a TV satellite outside.

“We need a room,” Tony pleads, and hopes the thought _as soon as possible and without_ _questions_ is assumed.

“You’re in the right place. How long you looking to stay?” the man asks.

“Just for the night.”

The guy across the counter shrugs, possibly disappointed his new customers don’t plan on sticking around. He pulls out a notebook and hands it over to Tony. “Write your name here. It’s fifty dollars upfront. If you change your mind, just see me tomorrow.”

Tony pulls out his wallet and sets fifty even on the counter before penciling in a fake name. The man doesn’t read it, just picks up the money and hands them a metal key with the room number written in permanent marker.

The room itself smells less like mothballs and dust than he expected, but the wallpaper is still dated. The paintings decorating the walls betray an attempt to give the motel a rustic theme, but the rest of the furniture clearly came from the same supplier as all of the motels they’ve stayed in before. “Cozy,” Steve says without intonation after Tony pushes him in through the door and locks the chain lock behind them. It’s the first thing he’s said since he left the jail cell. Tony pulls him by the hand, sits him on the bed, and gathers up the blanket from the other bed before throwing it over Steve’s shoulders. He’s staring past Tony’s eyes with the expression of a frozen man.

Tony kneels in front of him and rubs his covered shoulders, his legs, anything to warm him up. Steve swallows and stares straight ahead, blinking every so often like he knows he has to seem alive. "What the fuck were you thinking?" Tony says.

He waits for Steve to acknowledge his words, to show anything that could be mistaken for concern, and when he tilts his head and scrunches his forehead, Tony doesn't feel so alone. "You shouldn't have come for me."

"What was I supposed to do?" It's a desperate question he knows he doesn't have an answer to. Leaving Steve had never been an option.

Steve slumps into the blankets. "Go home."

Tony uses Steve's bulk to keep him stable as he stands up. "No." He's inviting an argument with the certainty in his tone, but this is something he'll fight for, tooth and nail.

"Tony…" Steve groans, never not a stubborn asshole, and anger flashes in his eyes.

"Leave no man behind, right?" Tony feels uncomfortably hot and he begins to peel off the layers that are weighing him down.

It's not just his clothes making his warm. The room is saturated with brittle tension, soaked in gasoline and ready to blow. "I didn't need you to save me."

"Are you telling me you had a plan to get out? Or were you just going to sit there until someone noticed you?" Tony's voice rises, and he tries to pull himself back. A tiny part of his brain warns him someone could hear them, another reminds him no one's here.

"I'm telling you that you should have left me there." Steve bores holes into his skull. The cold flush on his cheeks has dissipated with his defeat. He's Steve again, rearing to get in the ring and take a swing.

Tony steps into his role without trying. "Not. In. A. Million. Years. I'm not letting you do this to yourself."

Steve gets to his feet. "I was doing fine before you showed up!" The blankets fall from his shoulders and pool around his ankles.

Tony can't help the laugh that escapes his mouth. "Yeah sure, whatever you say, Steve." It's quiet for a moment; Tony notices the heating unit is loud and that the wind is fiercely blowing through the trees for the first time. "And, while we're on it, why the hell are you getting into bar fights? I thought you were better than—" He stops himself from finishing it and knows there was a line and now it can't be uncrossed.

"Better?" Steve croaks, his voice sounding like his lungs are in the process of being ripped past his ribs. "What would you know about _better_?"

It's not a rhetorical question–Steve wants an answer that probably involves a combination of the words 'Illuminati' and 'Extremis' and ‘Mentallo’. There's an expectation laced in his words that Tony's going to fight back, like there's a world where Tony might actually believe he's worth more. "That's not what I meant," Tony says instead. "I'm just saying if you wanted to stay incognito, there are better ways of handling it."

Sometime in the last couple of days, it felt like he was staring at the alternative version of his friend, one that's been warped just enough that Tony can't help but catalog the differences, like he's been traveling the Upper Midwest with Captain America from Universe 616-Point-Five.

Tony can see Steve asking himself the same questions and coming up short. "I think it's time you leave." Steve's positioning is brittle, his voice broken, teetering between rage and tears. "Please take the bike, and leave."

"But we just got here," Tony says, playing innocent of all the tension holding them down, even if he knows it's not going stop anything. It doesn't really matter anymore. Steve huffs and turns around and picks up his bag from where it was thrown into a corner. For the first time since Tony found him, Tony's worried he's actually going to walk out.

Instead, Steve dumps out the contents of his bag onto the floor and finds what it is he's frantically searching for. Tony registers it as a bottle of lube right at the moment Steve throws it at him and Tony barely catches it against his chest. He studies it; it's a cheap convenience store brand with sticky clear residue around the cap, and it's two-thirds empty. Tony looks up at Steve, then down at the bottle, then back up at Steve, who's entire focus is on unbuttoning his fly.

"What is this for?" Tony asks, knowing exactly what it's for. Steve's kicking off his jeans and pulling his t-shirt over his head, all the while Tony stands there frozen to the spot.

Steve's head finally snaps up and there's fire and fury deep in his gaze. "Fuck me."

Tony's struck stupid at the suggestion. Sure, he had begun to get used to how Steve had fallen into a pattern of using sex as a means of avoiding difficult conversations, but this feels different. "Huh?" Steve can't possibly mean...

He does. "Fuck. Me," Steve growls and climbs onto the bed so that he's on all fours.

The whole concept of alternate universes sounds incredibly fascinating to Tony right now. Alternate him would be able to take control of the situation or walk out the room. There had to be a version of him who knew enough that'd they turn on their heel and step outside, but this version, on this earth, couldn't look anywhere that wasn't Steve, defiantly holding his position even though his bare ass is in the air and he's still wearing socks.

Tony doesn't think about anal sex all that much. He had a few dumb and painful experiences with people he probably shouldn't have been with while he was young, and it had turned him off from bottoming ever since. That also meant that the converse never seemed all that appealing, and he only topped when his partners requested and probably didn't do it very well, because they rarely asked twice. So, standing there and being feet away from knowing just what it would it would feel like to slip inside Steve's tight hole should have been a turn off. He should have wanted to say no.

Tony steps across the room so he can put his hand on the small of Steve's back. Steve's breathing heavily, his back heaves with it, and Tony can feel the tension he won't let go of. He looks vulnerable, with no way to defend himself, purposefully at Tony's mercy.

In another world, Tony steps away and tells Steve to put on his goddamn clothes and make him talk. At the very least he'd make Steve turn over so he could look Steve in the eyes as he fucks him. In those worlds Tony isn’t falling into the same trap Steve has; he wouldn’t be settling for this sort of intimacy.

In this world, Tony kneels on the bed behind Steve, pops the cap of the lube, and drizzles a little over Steve's entrance.

Steve shivers, a movement that radiates up his entire body, and Tony realizes he's so keyed up he didn't even think about how cold the lube must be. He takes a deep breath and tries to find some patience amidst every loud thought in his brain. He focuses on the feeling of smooth skin beneath his fingers, how Steve's back bends with the act of breathing, how his head hangs down as if he's already been defeated.

Tony runs his fingers through the sticky lube that's dripping down Steve's skin. It takes much less effort than Tony would ever have believed to slip the pad of his thumb past Steve's rim. He stops immediately, waiting for something to shatter the moment, but nothing changes. The heating unit hums and tree branches rustle outside and every so often he hears the sound of cars rushing past the motel.

He wants to say something, but everything that comes to mind sounds exhausting. He dips his thumb in even further. The sight of it slipping into Steve's hole should be a suitable alternative to seeing Steve's face. It's not.

Tony slides out his thumb and pours just a little more lube on over the spot before using his two fingers to gently push in the excess lube. Tony goes slow, moving just a little bit further every time Steve takes a deep breath. It feels like a slick velvet vice and Tony can't believe Steve is actually letting him do this.

He can't believe Steve let other people do this to him. He can't help but picture what he imagines is a long line of men and women who've been allowed to be where Tony is now. The thought makes it easier to push his fingers just a little bit further until he hits Steve's prostate.

Steve, so quiet and contained, gasps, "Tony," and arches his back with enough force that he pushes against Tony's fingers. Tony moans from the sight of it. The concept that he's the reason Steve looks like that carries a very real physical pleasure. His dick is hard and wanting, impossible to ignore and way too close to its target, but Tony imagines what happens if he doesn't take the right care, and wills away the immediate need to go further, to go faster, to go _now._

He gently trusts both fingers in and out until there's no doubt that Steve can handle more. His ring finger slips in easily enough, but if it's this tight now, Tony's not sure he's going to last long once he replaces his fingers. Besides the occasional moan, Steve remains a panting, passive figure, waiting patiently for whatever Tony has in store. That somehow makes it scarier–Tony can't be sure what Steve expects. Does he want to be loved and cared for? Does he want to be punished?

Would fucking him fast and firm into the mattress be love or punishment? Would it be any different than whispering sweet nothings in his ear?

Tony takes as long as he can to pull out his fingers, leaving Steve's hole loose and wet with sticky lube. Tony squirts the rest of the lube on to his hand and realizes that they'll have to buy more if they're ever going to do this again. It's a strange, unexpected, thought that sits heavy in his chest and dark in his heart because it comes with it a new capacity for loss. Somehow that feels almost persuasive enough to stop and adds an extra layer of wrong as he begins to line himself up. Despite being marginally shorter than Steve, Tony has longer legs. It gives him only a small advantage, and won't provide enough of an angle to hit Steve's prostate. As gently as he can, Tony pushes Steve's hips down and his legs wider, and finally the tip of his dick easily catches between Steve's ass cheeks as he enters from above.

Tony pushes in a firm but slow slide, every millimeter of Steve's inner walls are holding him tight. The pleasure starts at the tip of his cock and runs up every nerve of his body. It knocks the breath out of him he didn’t realize he’s holding.

"Oh, " Tony moans when he bottoms out, somehow not expecting it to feel like this, at all.

Steve pants and in the stillness, Tony feels the small movements run through him. "I'm not going to break," Steve says after what could have easily been eternity.

"Yeah--but I might." Tony means it, his knees are already sore with the effort of staying upright. "Just… wait a second, ok?"

Steve doesn't protest, so Tony meets him halfway and pulls out until just the tip of his dick is past Steve's rim. Then, with as much force as he can muster with the limited strength he has in his thighs, he trusts back in. Steve half moans, half grunts, and all of it just feeds the sweet sensation of the glide against Tony's cock.

He pulls out again, luxuriating in the way that the tight glide somehow feels even better this time, and begins to fuck Steve in a way that approximates the forceful pace he's sure Steve wants.

Tony keeps it up for about two minutes before all of his muscles are straining too hard to continue. His abs tremble from the work and his trusts slow down to account for it, until he can't do it like this anymore. "Can you–" Tony begins but he's not entirely sure what he's asking until then idea of pushing Steve's hips down so that they're flush with the bed enters his mind.

Steve practically melts under his hands and Tony positions them so that he's laying on top and supporting much less of his own weight. Gravity helps in this position, too, and while he has to give up on his earlier punishing pace, he's still able to move within Steve with shorter thrusts that aim for his prostate.

This configuration leaves his head nestled on Steve's shoulder, his ears close enough to pick up on the small nuances of Steve's noises. Tony kisses the spot just below Steve's neck and grinds in. "Fuck, Steve," he mutters under his breath and knows Steve can still hear. "The way you feel…"

Pleasure, white hot and consuming, and good, _so good_ , builds on itself with every thrust. It's amplified by each time he can manage to get the angle right and hit Steve perfectly and wring out of him one of those glorious broken noises. "Don't stop," Steve pants into his ear. He's making small rutting motions against the bed with a rhythm that's unconnected to Tony's and if Tony thought he could manage to get Steve's cock in his hand while maintaining his trusts, he would. Now the best he can do it keep his mind on chasing Steve's little noises.

"Why…would…I stop?" Tony says somehow through his heavy breathing. There are thousands of reasons he should, but none of them are compelling enough to heed.

"Tony–" Steve sounds wrecked, his words not matching the intervals in which he needs to get air into his lungs. "Tony, I'm going to–"

Steve comes shuddering with a loud grunt sounds like someone landed a good kick to his solar plexus. Regret accompanies the knowledge that it won't be much longer for Tony, either, but he can't say no to chasing release. With a few trusts he takes extra care to make sure find Steve's prostate as he groans through his orgasm, Tony's there and coming buried deep as he bites Steve's shoulder. "Fuck," he mutters once the wave of pleasure turns into oversensitivity.

He doesn't want to pull out, definitely doesn't want to leave where he's pressed sweaty and hot against Steve's back, but he must be crushing Steve, so he tumbles over onto his back without grace.

Every muscle burns, even some he has only been casually aware of, and air doesn't seem to want to stick to his lungs. Steve's quiet beside him, still enough that Tony can almost pretend he's asleep.

Tony knows he's not. At some point you spend so much of your life with someone that you learn to see the little signs of alertness. Steve's was that he lay motionless on his stomach; Tony knew he couldn't sleep with his neck crooked like that.

"Steve," Tony whispers and the name catches in his dry throat. He coughs and says it louder. Steve's body goes tight, but he does nothing else that indicates he's heard anything. Tony twists onto his side so that he's close enough that parts of his skin brush against Steve's, but not close enough that any bit of him is pressed against him. "Steve, look at me," he tries again, and to punctuate his point, he rubs a circle into Steve's sweaty back. He's only met with tense muscles and silence. He runs his hand lower and lower, performing a limp one hand massage that acts more as a search mission into where Steve's defenses are lowest.

He find nothing except drying come leaking out of Steve's asshole and heavy shame at the realization that Steve's been laying here stuck to sheets with his own come. A bitter, frustrated part of him doesn't let him forget that Steve wanted it like this, but the thought leaves as quick as it comes. He’s supposed to be the bigger man.

With strength he doesn't have, Tony pushes himself off the bed. He hadn't even had a chance to see the bathroom yet, but a few hand towels are hanging just where he'd expect, and he takes one, runs it under warm water, and rings it out thoroughly. He turns around to the sight of Steve watching him with sad, piercing, eyes.

"Hey," Steve says as Tony walks forward and wipes the damp cloth against Steve's abused hole.

"Hey," Tony says back, not entirely sure why it's being said in the first place and focuses on making small circling motions with the cloth to clean Steve out. When he's finished, he lightly pushes Steve onto his back. Steve follows, a surprise, and the sheet peels away from his body as he turns. Tony wipes him off, first his stomach and then his half-hard cock, and he tries not to tug against the delicate skin.

Steve grabs his wrist once Tony finishes. "Could you go?" he asks. Tony's eyes snap to Steve's, because goddammit they've already had this argument, but Steve shakes his head like he knows exactly what Tony's going to say. With all the years between them, he probably does. "I mean, just for an hour. I need to be alone."

Tony sets the cloth on the bedside table and follows his instinct to run his fingers through Steve's hair. "I told you, I'm not leaving." He'll keep saying it until Steve can't fight it anymore.

Steve smiles like he knew Tony was going to say that. "Take the bike. I'll be here when you return."

Tony wants to believe him, always wants to believe Steve when he looks like that, so he asks, "Is that a promise?" It's a question with real weight. With everything wrong with the world, Captain America’s word should still mean something.

It’s quiet again, nothing but the hum of the heater to hear, but Steve’s eyes don’t look away. “Yes, it is,” he says finally, when it’s clear Tony will stay here until he uses his words.

 

* * *

 

It takes ten minutes to find a major road, another five to ride it into sight of civilization. The idea that they’re this close to an actual population center scares Tony a little bit, and he keeps going despite the invisible tether he has to the motel room. He has questions he needs answered. The panic that woke him up this morning sits in his mind like a heavy shadow now that he has to mental space to think about it. It was one thing to wake up in fear, it’s another to have known exactly where to find Steve.

There have been these small, barely catalogable things happening, things that happen without him asking or things he knows without him learning. It's all there under the surface since he's woken up and after today, Tony has an idea of what's going on.

He stops at a Walmart located right where town seems to begin and zips through the store, picking up Gatorade and protein bars. He purposefully wanders through the personal care section to see if he can find a better brand of lube than what he just used up. Buying some feels a little too real, despite all the evidence that they might need it.

"Where's the nearest library?" he asks the cashier when she hands him his receipt.

She points behind her. "Down the road. You won't miss it."

She's right; it's only a small single-story building set back from the road, but he doesn't miss it at all, there's not much around to disguise it. He makes a bee-line to the computers as soon as he steps inside. The machines are _old_ , but they work just fine for running a basic command prompt chat. It only takes that and a very familiar IP address to get through.

 _Tony:_ I'm on to you

 _AI:_ I have no idea what you mean

Tony glares at the computer screen. Talking to something that is also inhibiting your thoughts is one of those surreal things that he's probably too used to.

 _Tony:_ Cut the bullshit. You've been in my head since I woke up and I want to know why.

 _AI:_ I like it here. Where else should I be?

Tony's fingers move quickly across the keyboard, his conversational partner responds even faster.

 _Tony:_ Away. Please. It's hard enough without my own AI stuck in my head.

 _AI:_ Now don't be testy. I've been helping.

 _Tony:_ Yes, you did your thing. Thank you for that.

Tony wouldn't be here, on the run with Steve, if it wasn't for his AI's involvement. That doesn't mean he isn't being manipulated, and he knows it.

He sighs loud enough that the librarian looks his way.

 _Tony:_ But now it's time to go back to whatever you were doing before I woke up.

 _AI:_ It's your brain. If you wanted to remove me, you'd be doing that instead.

The AI is right, of course. There are ways to purge Tony's replica, but none of them are particularly pretty. Where Tony's brain ends and his internal computer begins is a question that he doesn't have all the answers to. He knows the coma fucked him up, but learning how much is going to require tests that would either involve going home for or taking the time to build the needed tools here.

That means ending his trip early, or at least admitting to Steve he has a stowaway he only trusts as far as he can throw himself.

 _Tony:_ What do you want?

 _AI:_ Only the same things you want.

 _Tony:_ Which are?

Tony types it and presses enter before he realizes he actually knows the answer to the question. His mind procures thoughts of Steve sitting in a jail cell. The AI confirms that it has access to his own thoughts by typing out:

 _AI:_ Yep. That.

He stares at the monochrome computer screen trying to think of a question he can ask that he would really answer. It feels a little like playing chess against himself.

 _Tony:_ This is about Steve, I get that. But why am I here?

He knows why he _wants_ to be here, but the mechanics, the usefulness, and the goal all seem out of his grasp.

 _AI:_ Because I learned something while you were gone, and if you knew it, you'd understand.

 _Tony:_ Care to specify?

The AI doesn't answer. Tony waits minutes for a response. He wants to tear it from inside his skull, but he built the AI to withstand outside tampering, and while he has ten ways to take control, the AI is set up to self-destruct upon interference. It just has too much information at its disposal. On top of all of Tony's memories, it had access to the memories Tony had discarded of his time as Director of SHIELD and the months Tony had been in his coma. At the time having _something_ retain that information felt vital.

Tony is not comfortable with all the things his AI knows, but he doesn't.

 _Tony:_ Fine. Be that way. I'll find a way to remove you and until then you're going to be good AI and stay as out of my head as you can.

He shifts in the chair remembering how he was tangled with Steve only an hour ago.

 _Tony:_ Especially during the sex.

 _AI:_ ;)

 _AI:_ Don't worry, I promise I'm keeping a respectful distance while you live out my dreams.

There's probably something messed up that Tony counts "sad fucking in cheap motels with Steve" as a dream.

He closes out the command prompt screen and logs off the computer, knowing saying goodbye is useless to a thing sitting in your head.

What the fuck is he going to do? It was only three days ago that Steve sat across the table from him and demanded he went home to someone who could fix his body. Back then, Tony could say with a straight face that all he needed was time and a place to crash.

But now that there’s something to fix, Tony knows that telling Steve means cutting their trip short and going home.

Tony’s not ready for that.

He’s sure Steve isn’t either.

 

* * *

 

"That's it. That's all I needed," Joe, the man running the motel, says as Steve finishes screwing in the door hinge. Steve feels settled, in place, much like the screw that's now flush with the wooden door frame. When Joe had spotted him smoking outside the motel room and asked for a hand as he finished renovating one of the empty rooms, Steve had accepted because he didn't have a reason not to. Turns out the door was one of the last things Joe needed done, and as he surveys the result of their efforts, Steve's a little jealous of how much nicer this room is compared to one he's sharing with Tony. "Thank you. One down, two to go before the summer."

"No problem. Always happy to help," he responds, honestly. All he did was help install the doors and move in the oversized bed, but it was good work. It certainly felt better than watching the snow fall on the highway. "Anything else you need?"

"Nope." Steve hears his motorcycle outside, knows it from the rumble of the engine and how the weight crunches the snow below it. Joe must know, too. "Your friend's back," he says without looking outside. Emphasis on 'friend'.

Steve walks out to see Tony standing next to the bike. He looks healthier than before, just a little fuller around the face and brighter around the eyes. "Hey there," Steve calls out to him, the morning, Joe, and the frigid weather, forgotten.

"Hey, yourself," Tony retorts. He's studying Steve, looking from Steve's face to the open door behind him, and Steve wonders if Tony is seeing the man he is, or the man he used to be. "I went into town and got some food for us. Just something to tide us over." He pulls some plastic-wrapped bars and a couple of small bottles of Gatorade out of the deep pockets of his coat.

Disappointment shouldn't be the feeling that drops into his gut as they walk inside, but whether it's the realization that he hasn’t eaten since yesterday or that it shouldn't have taken Tony five hours to pick up what he's currently handing to Steve, it does. He watches Tony unwind his scarf and pick at his gloves and slip off his coat, the pattern of transition from outside to in nothing but habit now, and tells himself he has no reason to be suspicious. Steve had been the one to ask him to leave. Tony probably just drove around, or grabbed a late lunch or—

Or, _something_ , he thinks. His intuition is going haywire, sending up red flags left and right, none of which make much sense when he thinks about them too hard, yet all of them igniting that slow burning anger he can never seem to get rid of. A disgusting part of himself won’t let him forget what happened when he trusted Tony before.

Once the thought's there, Steve can't unthink it. It gnaws at his brain while Tony hops into the shower and Steve's eyes stay fixed on the steam escaping the half-closed door. _If something happened, Tony would say it_ , he tells himself. Tony's been Steve's steady hand, completely held together while Steve continues to fall apart.

Yet, all that patience and kindness is a lot of ask from a person.

When Tony steps out of the bathroom with nothing but a thin towel covering his damp body, Steve's gone over it a hundred times. No matter how sure Steve is–and he's sure as he is the sun's going to rise tomorrow–the sliver of a doubt creeps in, reminding him that he's seen the world end too many times to depend on anything simple like the return of daylight.

"Tony," he begins, cautious and purposefully light while Tony rummages through his bag, "Where were you?"

He hates himself the second the question is asked. The thing Tony and him are tangled into needs trust, and Steve can't help himself but poison that like he's poisoned everything else.

"You said to go," Tony responds, stiffly, as he stands up and sniffs at a shirt. It must pass the test, because he slips it on despite his still damp chest; patches of it cling to his skin. He looks around for something else, his eyes glued to the ground, and when he doesn't find it, he steps back into the bathroom.

Steve watches all of it, unable to think of a defensible reason why his mind is on edge. They go minutes where all that comes to mind is _Tony didn't answer the question_. "Just curious, I guess," he prompts when it becomes clear Tony isn't going to tell him anything.

"I went to Walmart to pick up some food," Tony tells him, still fiddling with something in the bathroom.

"For five hours?" Steve says, and it's far more of an accusation than he ever intended. The motel room goes still, Tony no longer fidgeting around behind the half-opened door and Steve waiting with baited breath for the fall that's been coming ever since he left New York.

Tony pokes his head out, and Steve swears he looks guilty. It's in his eyes, the way he's defensively meeting Steve's gaze head on. "I drove around a bit, got some coffee."

Steve feels the inclination to fight in the tension that sets in his shoulders and his jaw. He repeats, " _For five hours?_ "

It's always like this. _He_ is always like this.

"Yeah." Despite the fact that he just stands there, he says it like he would if he were putting on the armor. "Why Steve? What the hell is this about?"

A minute ago, Steve was the one he didn't trust. A lot can happen in a minute.

"I just don't understand why you always have to evade the truth?" They're fighting words, but Steve's a fighter and now that everything has escalated, it feels good to say them.

Tony doesn't stagger, doesn't look like he was dealt any blow. "When did this become about _always_?" he says because Steve may be one of the universe's most successful strategists, but Tony's always been better at seeing the full picture.

"Since you went _years_ letting me think you were a different person than Iron Man." Tony swallows and tips his chin just a little higher. "Since the SHRA, since the incursions--"

"I thought we were over this," Tony tells him, making no effort to placate him.

Anger rises in his chest, and he rises to his feet with it. "When, Tony? When did we _get over_ it?"

"If you were pissed at me, you could've said something sooner, you know." Tony huffs. _Sooner_ feels intentionally vague. It could mean before Tony went into a coma, could mean before they started having sex.

“You stole my memories!” Steve shouts, the room shrinks, and his hair stands on end.

“I did what I had to—”

“I WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO YOU!” The words ring out across the room. Steve’s sure it carries across the trees and the lakes and all the way to the ruins of the mansion on Fifth Avenue. Steve gasps for air in the silence that follows. Tony trembles. By the time he repeats it almost a minute later, a lifetime has past. “I would _never_ do that to you.”

“Then,” Tony says to Steve. He’s quiet, broken, but not yet defeated. “We’d all be dead.”

Steve shrugs; his shoulders must weigh tons for how difficult of a gesture it is. “We would have figured it out”

Tony takes a step forward and the space between them gets a little smaller. Now, it’s measured in feet, not fifteen years of friendship.

“How Steve? It wasn’t just going to be us, not just the Avengers, not just Earth, even.” His chin falls to his chest, and Steve can’t see the tears, but he hears them. “Everything. Everyone.”

This time, Steve takes the step towards him. His legs wobble underneath him and he feels too tall, too close to the ceiling and oversized for the room. “How could you?” he asks and what he means is _how could you not love me the way I love you?_

“Honestly?” Tony looks up, and his wet checks shine with the reflected light from the bedside lamp. “Most days, I’m not sure.”

Steve never wanted it to be like this. His heavy body slips down on to the floor in a long, drawn-out movement that leaves him on his knees. “What are we doing?”

The question is a magnet. Tony joins him at his side on the carpet. “Freezing our asses off, I guess.”

Steve gently lays his head on Tony’s shoulder. Tony lets out a long breath and his shoulders drop a few inches. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I believe you about earlier. It was wrong of me not to trust you.”

Tony twists around so that he’s looking at Steve head on and opens his mouth like he has something to say, but he must think better of it because he just turns back so that he’s staring at the same spot of wallpaper Steve is.

Something settles. The room no long seems off-kilter, the threadbare carpet is firm beneath them. Steve’s sure he’s never been this comfortable in the last few months. It’s his stomach growling that breaks the silence between them. “I guess I’m hungry,” he says and he doesn’t want to move from this spot.

Tony leans in closer and chuckles. “I think I am, too."

It with great reluctance that Steve gets to his feet and offers a steady hand to help Tony stand up. “I think we can do something about that.”

 

* * *

  

Steve watches Tony lean back in his chair and stretch his arm across the empty one next to him. "This place is amazing." He's got the smile of a well-fed man, content to just sit here and soak in the atmosphere of the Moose lodge they had ended up in. It had been Tony's idea to stop when they drove by sign advertising a Lenten Friday fish fry.

He should have probably expected the antlers hanging from the ceiling, contrasting with the fluorescent lighting and salad buffet, but the whole place surprised Steve. Or maybe it isn't the place, but the feeling that had begun to steadily grow since they left the motel. "Well, it's something," Steve responds. He takes another bite of baked potato smothered in butter and too much salt. The fish is the star of the meal, but Steve had decided he shouldn't test the limits of its all-you-can-eat designation.

Tony hums and looks around. "Did you eat fish on Fridays when you were a kid?" he asks Steve while he studies a college hockey calendar on the wall beside him.

"Couldn't afford it." Steve takes another bite. It’s the most delicious thing he’s eaten over the course of the trip. "Ate a lot of potatoes, though."

"Mmhmm." Tony's pretending to eye the tv on the other end of the room, but he’s really sneaking glances at Steve. "You know how you have a vision of someone, and you know, you've _always_ known, it was stupid?" Tony bites his lip and stares at the ceiling tiles. "But it's comforting and easy and... just the way it is."

That statement can be coming from a lot of different places. Steve tries not to overthink it. "Yeah, that sounds--"

Tony doesn't let him finish. "Not that it's better–the vision, I mean. Just that, by clinging to it, you avoid having to look at something too hard."

"What's this about?" Steve asks, and he's concerned about the answer.

"Oh, it's nothing, just something on my mind..." He takes a long drink of water and finally looks at Steve's face. Steve’s expecting Tony to be sad or angry, not… turned on. "I just got to know something."

Steve's surprised Tony even feels the need to ask. "Anything, Tony." It's not like he has any secrets he needs to guard.

Tony swallows and leans forward like he doesn't want to be heard. "Do you come untouched often?" he blurts out, fast enough that Steve doesn't process the question at first.

"Huh?" Heat rises on his cheeks.

"I just thought that wasn't a thing, or it was a thing, because _everything_ is a thing, but that it wasn't much of a real thing," Tony rambles. "Like an urban myth invented for porn, you know what I mean?"

"I really don't."

Tony huffs and looks around the room like someone might be listening. "I'm actually asking. Is it a super-soldier thing? Did Erskine upgrade your prostate along with everything else?" He might be joking. Steve’s not sure.

"I don't think so?" Steve answers once he feels like he actually understands what information Tony is asking for. "I'm just as sensitive now as I was before Project Rebirth."

It's quiet for the few moments it's clear Tony needs to process what Steve's asking. "So, it actually happens? Like, this morning, that actually happened?"

The morning's memories flash through Steve's mind. The anger and the pleasure and Tony's body hot and heavy above him linger in his skin. "Yes, that happened," Steve confirms, because he has to hear it, too, to believe it was real.

Tony bites his lip. Even dry and chapped, he has such beautiful lips. "And this has happened before?" He looks genuinely curious but also terrified of the answer.

"Not often. It depends a lot on…" Steve pauses, trying to find the right word to replace the one in his throat. "…Who my partner is."

"And you like it?" Tony looks off at the television screen beside them.

"Have you ever had an orgasm before? Of course, I like it." Steve crosses his arms around his chest, like the motion of confidence will somehow clarify what Tony wants to know. "Wait, Tony… do you like it?" The possibility that Tony had only fucked him because Steve had demanded it flits around at the edge of thought, amorphous only because Tony didn't look angry as much as embarrassed.

"Can't say I've enjoyed...receiving, before, no." Tony's both looking at him and looking past him at the same time. There's a story behind the soft focus of his eyes, something that sits uncomfortable on Tony's skin. Steve doesn't question the impulse to reach out across the table and lay his hand on top of Tony's. Tony smiles, a small one that's just a quirk of his lips, and Steve knows he did the right thing. "So, you're saying, what happened this morning was good for you, right? I think I need to clarify that point. If you can."

Steve withdraws his hand and smirks before taking another bite. "Was it good for you?"

"Hell, yes," Tony answers, swift and sure, leaving no doubt that he means it.

"Ok, good, we should do it again, some time." The words fall out of Steve's mouth before he realizes the sentiment is much less casual than it sounds.

Tony looks like he has something to say to that, and if it's related to the way his eyes go wide, it's probably good. But the expression on his face changes drastically in a few seconds and his focus shifts from Steve's face to the television. "Steve..."

Steve twists to look at his own mugshot on the screen. That was less than twenty-four hours ago. _I look like hell_ , he thinks. At least he's showered since. The local news is reporting on the early morning jailbreak, and while the sound is off, Steve can read lips well enough to know he's considered 'armed and dangerous'. "We should go," he says and surveys the room, counts four separate exits, and decides the one closest to his bike is a good option.

Tony's throwing on his jacket and gloves, rummages through his pockets and throws a pile of bills on the table. "Yeah, that's a good idea." Steve hears one person whispering, and then four, and then the entire hall is turning to look between then and the TV. Now it's an image of grainy security-film of Tony walking through a large store, a couple of Gatorade bottles in his hand. "What's the plan, Cap?"

The word 'Cap' takes Steve by surprise for a second, and it's long enough that the whispering turns into the sound of ten different 911 calls. "We'll take the exit at your four, get on the bike, and then see if the old girl still has any power."

Tony nods and turns around. There are two tables between them and the door. Someone darts out to grab him, but Steve's right behind to stop them. Tables crash behind them as they hit the cold wind, but no one is fast enough to follow by the time Tony's on the bike and Steve's jumping on behind him. His feet are barely off the pavement when Tony kicks off and they're on the road. Tony pushes the bike farther than Steve has in months, but it performs like nothing's changed. They are barely ready for the bitterly cold air hitting their faces; it feels closer to fire than the ice Steve is so familiar with.

Steve turns around to watch the lodge and the people spilling out of it fade from his vision. Adrenaline pumps through his blood, better than any run, and with his arms firm around Tony, better than anything, really. He doesn't ask where Tony's driving, he trusts him to lead them and watches the town go by. He never did even learn what it's called.

That doesn't matter. He feels inexplicably, dangerously, happy. As the chain restaurants fade to forest, Steve's sure he's only going to recognize one thing about this place, and it's the man in front of him. They should just change the name, erase it off the map, and write _Tony_ in the spot that remains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr post](https://msermesth.tumblr.com/post/183831745849/magnetic-north)


	5. In Total and Forever

Tony hates the idea of leaving any more of a trail, but their first stop _has_ to be the motel. They barely come to a skidding stop when Steve jumps off the back of the bike and runs to the door. He doesn't bother using the keys, just smashes the door down from its hinges and runs in to grab the shield and nothing else. Tony's back on the road before Steve even has time to settle back in behind him; time is a precious thing, every second slipping away in Tony’s mind like sand in an hourglass, each one lost leading closer and closer to popping the bubble the two of them have been inhibiting. Scenario after scenario crosses Tony's mind. It isn't the prospect of getting caught here that matters, it’s the possibility that it would alert all the people Tony's been avoiding.

That isn't an option, so Tony tests the limits of the bike's abilities while Steve holds on tight. He's not even sure where exactly he's supposed to be going, but he takes a gamble and decides that their best bet is to push further north and away from any population centers. Once Tony feels that he's far enough away, he turns onto a small unplowed road covered in lightly packed snow.

They'll need to stay somewhere, at some point, but their faces are plastered all over the local news. At least they've slowed down once Tony decides that the engine’s roar is too conspicuous and the threat of slipping on the snow too great. The trees overhead and to the side block the wind well enough that it's not as cold as it was before, and after a while the adrenaline ebbs away and there's nothing but the slippery road in front of them, the light of the moon peeking through the bare tree branches, and Steve's arms wrapped firmly across his midsection.

A flash of a thought, romantic and stupid, keeps creeping into his brain, and Tony resists the urge to turn around and kiss Steve as he drives. He likes the feeling the idea gives him more than the idea itself, the twist of his gut he's been simultaneously chasing and fleeing. Tony can almost believe they're other people—people who do late night drives just to see what they might find and not because they are on the run.

He settles for resting a gloved hand over the one Steve has wrapped around his torso and reminds himself Steve's still here, that he's still here. The trees and the stars and snow slowly pass in his peripheral vision. With Steve at his back, it's like flying in the armor, back before he could reach Mach 1, back when the world made sense.

They aim northeast and Tony trusts his AI to act as his compass. They drive long after Tony's body goes numb to the cold and the exhaustion settles in Tony's bones, and then they drive even longer than that. At some point they end up on the main road again, but just long enough to stumble upon a tiny gas station tucked in front of the snow laden pines. There's only one pick-up truck parked in front and a dim light illuminating the glass door. "You sure this is a good idea?" Steve asks as Tony dismounts. Tony's not sure at all, but they need gas, food and coffee.

"Morning," a gray-haired man, the lone gas station attendant, calls out from where he's rearranging small bags of chips in front of the cash register. Logically, Tony knows it's morning to someone, but the moon is still shining bright outside. Tony grabs protein bars and some donuts before eyeing a still-filling pot of coffee in the corner. The attendant must see him because he says, "You're lucky, coffee's almost done."

Tony grunts in response, too careful to let himself be dragged into a conversation, and wanders around to appear busy while he waits for the coffee to finish. He scans the headlines in the local paper to get a sense just how widespread the search for him and Steve has gotten, but it turns out to be dated from earlier in the week, so he continues to look around, trying to find something to distract him while also avoiding making eye contact with the attendant.

"Did you hear about this?" the attendant asks. Tony looks over his shoulder to the TV the attendant is watching closely. The news caption reads "JAILBREAK" and Tony immediately gets ready to run outside. "It was supposed to be impossible to escape, but well, you know how it is with these people."

The words don't sound right, breaking Steve out of a small-town jail had been nothing in the context of Tony's many escapes, but then he takes a second look at the screen and sees someone staring back at him he wasn't expecting. He knows this face; if he looks out the glass, he can see it smoking on the far side of the parking lot. Tony does a series of double takes, trying to reconcile the two images, and begins to catalog some important differences, like the fact that the Steve on the TV is clean shaven, the Steve outside has at least a few days' worth of stubble. Or TV-Steve is wearing an orange jumpsuit, while the Steve outside has one hand tucked into his leather jacket.

He especially notices that the news caption now reads "Hydra Pretender SR".

And then “Thirty-Four Dead” and “Political Chaos.”

Whatever instinct to run away Tony had before is rendered null and void by the terror that grips every muscle in his body. Local law enforcement is one thing to evade, but someone with Steve’s mind and skills? Getting caught can't be an option now.

Tony swallows and tries to think of something to say that doesn't betray any of his fear. "They'll catch him," he tries and doesn't really believe it.

As casual as he can, Tony pours whatever there is of the coffee and pays for their snacks. The entire time he keeps his eyes on the floor and tries to leave as little of an impression as he can, in case the the Steve on the television ever shows up to question the poor attendant.

 _He's going to show up,_ Tony thinks. With any Steve, some things were a given.

Tony takes a long gulp of the coffee and it burns all the way down to his stomach. He takes another, and then hands it off to Steve while they both mount the bike. It feels too right to have Steve settled snug behind him, so warm and comfortable he can barely stand it. Like this, he feels the true depths of his terror and finds there may be no bottom to it.

Steve can't know. _Yet_ his mind helpfully supplies, and he tries to bury that thought. Right now, all Steve wants to do is get into a fistfight with his own reflection, and if he knew that this perversion of himself was loose in the world, he would jump into a battle Tony's sure would only push Steve down further.

Tony kicks off with one goal—disappear. Sure, he’s got Iron Man armor available around the world, but right now he has no way of accessing any of them without telling Steve why he’d need them. If it means he's lying by omission, well, he's done that before, is _currently_ doing that with his strange brain virus. He can live with the consequences when they predictably come to ruin every little perfect thing he's carved out in the last couple of days.

 

* * *

 

Just as the sun rises, snow begins to fall again, but this time it’s wet and fluffy and gathers heavy on the ground. Steve watches it whiz past him as they drive around the back roads, his arms held tight around Tony and his head laying on the crook of his shoulder. The world is soft like this, everything’s hazy around the seams, all the sharp, cold edges sanded off, leaving something strange and comfortable instead. Steve could sleep with the blurry world slowly passing him by.

The bike comes to a cautious stop on the side of the road. They haven't seen anyone since they left the gas station, but Steve still stands stiffly for a second to listen for any oncoming traffic or feet in the snow. "I think I saw a cabin through those woods," Tony explains with a vague wave of his hand.

Steve peers through the trees and sees no cabin or a way through the forest. "What do we do with the bike?" he asks, because he trusts Tony even without evidence.

"Bury it under the snow," Tony says and walks the bike behind a tree. They cover it using only their hands until it blends in with the rest of the snow drifts. Tony trudges through, determined and sure, but Steve sees how his foot falls get slower and heavier as they go. Steve lets himself imagine putting his body to good use and carrying Tony the rest of the way. It's not a long walk from there, but by the time they reach a house, the snow has slipped in through his boots and his legs are wet up to his knees.

When Tony said cabin, Steve had imagined something stereotypical and made of logs, but instead he's looking at a tiny, pink ranch house. The wind has driven the show into large drifts against the plastic pale pink siding, leaving only parts of the house visible. There's no sign of people, the only footprints he can see belong to them, and the snow covers the only door. "Looks like we're alone." There is a flat expanse of emptiness behind the house: just a frozen lake covered in snow, with trees barely visible on the horizon.

By the look on his face, Tony's cataloging all of the place's weaknesses. "Probably the closest we're going to get, anyway."

It takes a little less than an hour for them to dig enough that they can open the door, look around, and start the generator. The walls are covered in fishing paraphernalia and there is a painting of ducks above the fireplace. "I bet no one comes here in the winter," Steve says aloud; if Tony hears him from where he's trying to start the stove's pilot light, he doesn’t show it.

They find a couple of sweaters, neither of which fit Steve, and some canned food in the pantry. There's only one bed, but it’s quilt is heavy and warm, and after they change into dry clothes and heat up some beans, settling under it together might be the best feeling in the world.

 

* * *

 

Steve wakes up an unknown number of hours later. He's tucked tight beside Tony's warm body, and while the cabin's meager heat is leaving any exposed skin cold to the touch, all of him that's under the quilt is sweating. As gently as he can, he lifts himself off the bed and out of Tony's grasp. Tony, fast asleep, grumbles, but lets go.

He feels rested in a way he's not used to, present and sure that the time he spent sleeping was good and needed. He sees the books tucked under the living room end table and a pack of cards resting on top. He deals himself out a game of solitaire and plays like it doesn't matter how much time he wastes, like the game itself is worth his quiet focus.

"Want to play something else?" Tony asks from where he's leaning against the doorframe.

Steve gathers up the cards and begins shuffling. "What'd you like?”

"Texas Hold ‘Em? No stakes." Tony sits down across from him on the floor, the stone of the fireplace digging into his back. Steve shuffles and deals out the cards, before setting the remainder of the deck in between them. "Remember that game with Clint, Tigra, and, wait... who was it?"

"Are you talking about the time Clint managed to beat you, or the time we all played strip poker?" Steve asks and studies his cards. He's got nothing.

"No, no, no, not either of those times, but wow..." Tony smiles to himself, either from the memories or the hand he's holding. He nods at Steve to keep going. With just the two of them, the game rolls on quickly. "I had forgotten about the ill-fated attempt at strip poker."

Steve smiles, too, and sets the next card on the table. Still nothing for him, and Tony's poker face lives up to the name. Steve can't read him. "Vision didn't talk to me for a week," Another card on the table; he still has nothing but he isn't about to fold. "I guess there is some things Avengers aren’t meant to share." He sets down the final card.

Tony lays his cards on the floor between them, revealing what Steve had known since Tony had picked up his hand—that he had won. "Ha! It's not like that has anything to do with Thor singeing off his pubic hair."

"It was a bad idea," Steve says but he still laughs, and throws away his cards.

Tony picks up the deck and begins to shuffle. "Yeah, we've had a lot of those."

Steve watches as Tony moves his hand, seamlessly distributing the cards with all the skills of a professional poker dealer. "Who taught you?" he asks.

"Huh?" Tony squints in confusion, a strange sight to see. Steve's heart clenches for how much he loves him.

"Who taught you to shuffle cards?" Steve remembers trying over and over to duplicate whatever his dad did, just like he's been remembering for months. He can't recall if, back then when he was just a sickly child, he had wanted to be his father or to be better than his father.

"Mom," Tony says, simply, like it's an unnecessary detail he only remembers because Steve brought it up. "She thought it would be useful at school. Help me bond with the kids and all that."

"Did it?"

Tony's smile, once soft, turns crooked, just a touch bitter. "Only when I discovered they liked me better when I lost from time to time." Steve has nothing he can think of to say to that. He can imagine Tony wowing petty rich kids who had been, until that point, misunderstanding the word 'genius'. Tony, at his best, is an unstoppable force of nature, even if he is a force Steve hasn’t always comprehended. "Who taught _you_?" Tony asks when they're mid-game.

"My dad," he says with a look out the frosted window. _Myself, maybe,_ he adds in his mind, his hazy childhood and pre-serum memory forming and reforming around the two ideas. "He showed me, I think, before Mom kicked him out. I don't remember him actually teaching me, but I can't forget the way..." Steve studies the cards. They're barely used and something feels wrong about that. "...I mean, I can't forget how it made me feel to see him do it. It looked like magic." He gulps and fixes his eyes to the duck portrait above the fireplace. "You know, when you're a kid," _and you're too sick to be of any other use_ , "certain things just become important. You feel so helpless and small and if you could do the one thing, then maybe..." Steve lets the sentence hang. He has a lot of ways to finish it, lots of things he wishes he could have been and could have done, lots of ways to justify the overwhelming inability to hold himself to anything but the highest standard.

Steve's freight train worth of thoughts are put on hold when Tony leans forward and places his hand on Steve's knee. "Steve," Tony starts, in his please-listen-to-me voice, "You are not your father."

Steve picks up the cards, game forgotten, and shuffles them. His technique is fine, adequate, nothing to write home about. It's been a constant, one of the few things about his physical abilities that didn't change with the serum. With a thud, he sets the clean-looking deck on the carpet and looks at Tony, and with nothing in between them, says, "No. I'm not."

Tony doesn't move his hand off his knee and doesn't come any closer. "You never talk about him."

"You never asked." It's a half-hearted explanation; Steve doesn't say it as if it's a complaint. Avoiding the topic of his father was exactly what he always wanted.

“I guess…” Tony picks up the cards from the floor and drops them messily into a pile one-by-one, “…I didn’t want to invite any comparisons.” Steve stares, missing some vital piece of info to explain what exactly Tony’s talking about. Tony adds, “You know, I’m an alcoholic, he’s an alcoh—”

“Tony, no,.” Steve rushes in to say before Tony can even complete the thought.

“You don’t have to pretend, Steve, I know it’s a sore spot for you.” Tony picks up the cards again and shuffles them mindlessly.

“It’s not that…” Steve starts to say, but it’s all mixed up in his head.

“Really, honestly, I mean it—”

Steve takes the deck of cards out of Tony’s hand and leans over far to place out of an easy reach for both of them. “It’s not the same. You and him are worlds away, nothing like the other." He hasn't always believed it, but he does now. "And…”

“And?” Tony asks when Steve trails off.

Tension fills the room. There are words upon words that Steve could use to describe how Tony’s different, how Tony grew and changed and made the world grow and change with him. Joseph Rogers is nothing compared to Tony Stark. None of that fits into a real sentence, so Steve answers a different question. “The difference is you’re all the things I like about the world right now.”

Anything else he would say would just puncture the way his stomach swoops if he thinks about Tony too hard.

Tony blinks, once, twice, and then looks at Steve like he said something in an alien language. His mouth opens and there are words on his lips, Steve can see Tony consider saying them aloud. But Tony must decide against it, because he swallows and crookedly smiles. The moment fades away like the daylight outside, and Steve notices just how much darker the room has become. “Want to go for a walk? I’d like to get a better sense of the surroundings in case the cops show up.” Something about the word ‘cops’ makes Tony’s eye twitch, and Steve vows to make sure Tony doesn’t have to deal with that scenario.

They have the luxury of taking their time bundling up, tucking their pants into their socks and wrapping their scarfs across their mouths, so that the moisture of their breath on wool rubs against their cheeks. The snow has finally stopped, and the moonlight illuminates the ground, white and bright. Trudging through it is less enjoyable than the sight is beautiful; their feet leave deep tracks as they walk around the perimeter, the sounds of their movement muffled and soft. At least, the biting wind is gone and the temperature hovers just around ‘enjoyable’. It’s the best weather Steve’s encountered since he got off the interstate.

“We shouldn’t stay long,” Tony says after they’ve circled the house and are standing at the edge of the frozen solid lake. “Just in case…”

“Two days at most,” Steve agrees. Just enough time to rest and recover and eat through the provisions in the cupboard, but short enough to limit the risk of being discovered.

Tony shakes his head. “One day. We should leave when it gets dark tomorrow, then we have the cover of night to go… somewhere.”

“Somewhere’s a big place.” Steve looks across the lake, the trees on the other side invisible in the night and he thinks about what you can’t see but still know is there. With a few tentative steps he walks onto the ice, where the wind has moved the snow in drifts and exposed the slippery surface.

He jumps up and lands with a dull thud.

Nothing happens.

“What the fuck are you doing, Steve?”

Steve stands still and listens for something to happen. “Just… checking.” He does it again. “We’re fine.”

Tony laughs and begins to walk out further onto the frozen lake. “Haven’t you had enough of ice?”

“Huh?” Steve asks, running past Tony and sliding forward gleefully once he has enough momentum. It takes ten feet to come to a halt. Adrenaline pumps through his blood as his body adjusts to compensate for the slippery ice beneath him. It takes another slide to return to where Tony is slowly stepping forward.

“You were literally frozen.” Tony’s smile is lit up by the moonlight.

Steve wants to kiss him. Just lean forward and taste those lips and wrap his arms around his body. Then the thought crosses his mind that he can; nothing is stopping him from doing so.

Tony must see the way Steve’s looking at him, because he stops where he is and stares back with wide eyes. There’s only a few feet between them, and then Steve steps toward him and there are none. Steve tilts his head, puts his hand on Tony’s waist to steady himself, and leans forward until his lips are millimeters from Tony’s. “I used to think you were scared of the cold,” Tony whispers and the moisture of his breath dries cold on Steve’s cheek.

Steve laughs and rests his forehead against Tony’s. “Scared’s not the right word.” He’s so close to Tony, it almost feels like something would break if he went through with the kiss.

 _Almost_. It only takes a slight tilt of his head and his lips are on Tony’s and he’s sure they’ve never actually been quite like this. Even when Tony was pressed sweaty and naked behind him, there was something keeping them apart, but it’s gone now, left behind in some motel room while they were too busy making their grand getaway.

Tony grips the leather of his coat like he’s going to fall to his knees if he lets go, and maybe with the ice beneath his feet he would. Steve holds him, his balance perfect, and like this he’s strong and sure and powerful, and it’s alright to be this way, to be him. Tony’s the one who deepens the kiss when he flings his arm around Steve’s neck and brings them even closer, flush against each other, nothing but the padding of their coasts in between them.

Steve breaks for air first because he needs _see_ Tony more than he needs to kiss him, just for a moment, just to see that Tony’s really in front of him and this isn’t a dream that’s about to be snatched away. Tony stares back as if the kiss is more surprising than anything else that’s happened since he showed up. “I used to tell Jarvis not to put ice in your drinks,” he says and his voice is far away. It’s clear that Jarvis is the last thing he’s thinking about.

“Really?” Steve asks, his mind hazy on exactly what they’re talking about at the moment. “I just thought he was English.”

Tony laughs again and it takes over his whole body. It causes his feet to slip out from under him, and Steve has to compensate his hold to keep Tony semi-upright. They end up slipping until their knees are on the ice and their centers of gravity are no longer in a precarious position. “Steve,” Tony breathes, “Why is it always like this between us?”

Steve doesn’t really understand the literal meaning of the question, but the feeling behind it is loud and clear. He pulls away but slips his hand through Tony’s so they remain connected. “Because we’re doomed.” He means it in the best way.

“We try. Every time we try to understand and move past whatever is driving us apart, and yet, it’s always two steps forward and light years back with you.” Tony flops onto his back on the ice.

Steve lays down, too, far enough away that they’re only touching where their hands are joined. “That’s not true, though. We’re here. And we’ll be here tomorrow.” The stars twinkle above him and they’re brighter than he’s ever seen them, and Steve’s seen the sun up close, been through the cosmos, and fought intergalactic wars. “And in the meantime, while we’ve been going back and forth, through all the fights, we’ve built some amazing things together.”

Tony looks at him. He disagrees, but he won’t say it, because he knows if he does Steve will just argue with him. Steve knows him well enough to see it in the way his forehead creases.

Steve sighs with knowledge that they’re stuck in a cycle, repeating the same habits, and only learning a little more about the other with every go-around. “Remember the Avengers Machine?” he asks, because it’s been flitting in and out of his thoughts since Tony showed up.

“…yes,” Tony answers, but it’s defensive, ready for another fight he doesn’t want.

“I’m still proud of it, and of the work we did together. Sometimes…” Steve trails off and mentally traces the constellations above him while he gathers his thoughts. “I think it might have been the best thing I’ve ever been a part of.” It’s a confession, something he had been unable to admit aloud since everything went downhill, but it doesn’t hurt to say.

“I am, too,” Tony says. He no longer looks like he’s about to argue. “It was one of my best ideas.”

“We should do it again, but better, stronger this time.” It’s matter of fact, but Steve doesn’t realize it’s how he feels until he says it. There are things he’s been yearning for lately— cigarettes and sleep and some charcoal with good, heavy paper. Tony’s skin; memory loss. But this admission’s different. He was an old man the last time he wanted to feel the satisfaction of the shield on his arm. He hasn’t been daydreaming about shouting “Avengers Assemble!,” or seeing the team, at all. “When we go back,” he adds after what’s probably minutes of trying to process his own realization.

“Yeah,” Tony agrees, but in a distant way, like he’s answering his own question more than Steve’s. “When we go back.”

The snow beneath him has been slowly seeping in through his jeans, and Steve is uncomfortably wet and cold. “I lied,” he admits after a while of trying to tell himself it doesn’t bother him.

“Huh?” Tony asks, confused.

“About the ice and the cold. I’m not afraid, but that doesn’t mean I like it.” The stars are bright, bold, impossible to ignore; and they feel very, very familiar. “You know, when I left New York,” Steve adds and looks over to Tony, who’s listening avidly. “I really was going to go see the whole country. Go to county fairs and talk to truckers at off-road diners and and just meet people. I stopped all along I-80; a day here, a week there. Just enough time to realize it didn’t fix anything, not enough to stop me from trying again. Until, it was.”

Steve’s back is numb. He could just stop talking and they’d go inside and he would never have to tell this story. 

“I was only a little more than an hour outside of Chicago. The next day, I was going to stop in and spend some time with Sam and Rayshawn. I wanted to see the work they were doing there. It had been a long time since I had seen a familiar face.” Steve sighs. It seems longer ago than it really was. “I had stop taking Sharon’s phone calls a month before,” he slips in, an aside to explain what he didn’t know back then—that he was already falling apart. “That night I stayed in a motel not far from the lake and I couldn’t sleep so I walked to the beach. It was quiet. The leaves has begun to fall, and you walked on them instead of the asphalt. It hadn't been that cold yet, but that night I felt the chill.” Steve’s quiet for a minute. Tony doesn’t say anything. “And I sat on the cold sand and looked across the lake at Chicago’s lit-up skyline. I was shivering. And I knew then I wasn’t going to see Sam.”

Patient silence follows. Beneath the big, overwhelming sky, Steve feels small and insignificant. If Tony wasn’t next to him, he might never get up; he’d just let the snow fall and cover him until he becomes one with the ice again. “Steve...” Tony says, like he wants to say more and is still figuring out the right way to put it.”

Steve can’t suffer the understanding look on Tony’s face, not the way his story has dragged down the bliss of before. He doesn’t want to feel this anymore. He tries for a joke, anything to reach back into the past and not feel pain. “For the record—I sometimes snuck back into the kitchen and put ice in my own drinks when Jarvis wouldn’t.”

There’s a beat where nothing happens, and then Tony softly laughs, maybe just humoring him, maybe relieved, and turns around to get his hands underneath him to lift himself up. “Stop being such a stoic asshole.” He’s grinning, from ear to ear as he reaches out to Steve to try and help him up.

 

* * *

 

Tony lets the water run until it’s scalding hot and filling the small bathroom and its tacky wallpaper full of steam. Before even stepping into the shower, Tony allows the steam to warm him up and make it just a little harder to breathe. Everything feels somehow both heavy and slow, electric and sharp, like if he opens his mouth and says what’s exactly on his mind he’d fall into a crater of some feeling he doesn’t want to acknowledge. It’s not despair; though that’s there, tangled up in everything, because people are looking for them, Steve’s twisted copy is looking for them, and Tony has nothing to defend them with. The feeling is not just happiness, either, though there’s a buoyancy he gains every time he remembers how Steve looked at him before they kissed. There’s certainly some guilt for the secrets he's unable to give up. It’s not even all desire, despite the fact Steve’s probably lying in bed right now waiting for him.

Though, that's a very, _very_ good thought.

Tony takes his time letting the hot water wash over him and warm him from the outside in. He can still feel the ghost of the cold ice on the back of his legs and they twinge underneath the spray. He appreciates the silence and the opportunity to think of their next step, but it does nothing to relax him, nothing to take away every thought flitting across his mind. Every time it feels like he had a hold on what they should do next, the thoughts scatter away from him. There's something there, he can sense it, something reasonable and smart, something that will keep them safe, but it's behind a curtain of agitation he can’t remove.

How is it that just yesterday, Steve was beneath him, quiet and wanting? And why is that the only fact Tony's brain can latch onto? He shouldn't be standing here, half hard, when their lives are this at stake.

Tony's fighting a losing battle against his own horniness. Even through the door and the tile, he can feel the invisible line between him and Steve and its natural magnetic pull. Maybe if he calls, Steve will join him in the shower, kiss him until he can't think of the danger they're facing, and whisper his name when he comes.

There used to be an infinite number of universes, each one different, some of them with only slight details different from his own. That was before Tony and Steve fell apart and took the Avengers with them. In one of those universes, Tony's sure, Steve woke up from the ice and asked him on a date and even after every storm they’ve weathered, they never had to see this cabin, never had to brave this cold. Or maybe in that universe, Steve and him ran away, just for the weekend, and that Tony isn't contemplating if he needs to kill a fascist version of Steve before the situation gets any worse.

Tony hopes that in those universes, Steve looks at his Tony they way his Steve looked at him.

Or maybe he doesn't. It's selfish, but Tony wants it all for himself. He wants to be the only one in the defunct multiverse to have tonight.

He replays yesterday in his head for seventy-sixth time, and gets hung up again on the fact that Steve had liked being fucked. Tentatively, he uses both hands to squeeze each ass cheek before spreading them wide. Curiosity gets the best of him and he gently presses his index finger past the rim of his entrance, and tries to imagine it's Steve doing it as he does.

Steve would want it to be good; he'd stop if it wasn’t. With his other arm braced against the tile wall, Tony pushes further in and finds a knot of nerves right where he should have expected, but the warm pleasure that radiates from the spot still surprises him. It makes him gasp, from just however overwhelming it is, and he slips his finger out, and finishes lathering his body with the half-used bar of soap they found in a drawer.

Tony dries himself with a dusty towel and takes a deep breath. Normally Tony can't have the things he doesn't deserve anyway, so the surreal option in front of him is hard to get his head around. The temporariness of it makes it a little easier, at least, shaping everything into a formless dream.

It'll be gone tomorrow. Tony can feel it. He tugs on some dry clothes and opens the door.

Steve's poking at burning logs in the fireplace. It's roaring already, and the heat it gives off compensates for the cold air that hits Tony's skin. "I couldn't get the heat any higher," Steve says as way of an explanation. "Seemed a shame to not light a fire when we have the option." The glow bounces off his features in a way that makes him seem mischievous and carefree, a decade younger.

A tiny part of Tony's brain tells him that smoke is a liability, but the rest of him is too enamored with the way Steve's eyes are dancing. "We're not going to feel that in the bedroom," Tony says, not at all concerned about keeping warm.

"I thought about that." Steve steps away into the bedroom and returns carrying the mattress with the sheet still on. He does it easy, like it weighs nothing, and when he places it on the floor in front for the fireplace, it fits perfectly between the brick and the couch. "We'll just sleep out here."

"That'll work." Tony steps forward, a little confused and a lot overwhelmed, while Steve fetches blankets and pillows and piles then on top. It looks so comfortable and Steve looks so inviting, Tony would be ok if this is the last thing he sees.

"Good," Steve says as he drops the last of it into a pile on the bed. The fire roars beside them, filling the awkward silence left behind by the lack of movement. Something needs to happen soon to break the inertia and push them where Tony is so sure they're going to end up. Steve's eyes have a pull and weight, locking him in place and stealing the air out of his lungs.

"Are you tired?” Tony asks, like an idiot, because if there is confusion, any at all, they should get it out of the way right now.

Steve steps on to the mattress between them and Tony replicates the gesture until he can feel the heat of Steve's body as well as the heat of the crackling fire. "No," Steve whispers and Tony reaches out, his hands no longer waiting for his approval, and cups Steve's cheek.

They kiss like it's the first time and two-thousandth time, like they did on the ice and like their multiverse counterparts must have done everyday. Steve's hands fumble when they try to find the hem of Tony's shirt, but his lips never falter, never betray any doubts.

Tony has a ton of doubts, he has more questions than he has time enough to ask, but they don't matter. Not when Steve's large hands splay against his bare back and pull him close, not when Tony falls on his knees and bounces against the mattress, making sure to take Steve with him. The doubts can wait until tomorrow or until they’re dead. Whatever comes first.

With sure, steady hands, Tony goes for Steve's fly and tries to make the act of unzipping and unbuttoning as sensual as he can, for as long as he can. He draws out the act of slipping the button through the hole and pulling down the cold metal zipper, making sure that his knuckles brush up against the growing sign of Steve's enjoyment. Steve gasps against his mouth and wraps his hand around the back of Tony's head to draw him in closer, as if that is even possible.

Tony follows, his teeth on Steve's bottom lip and his hands pushing down the fabric of Steve's jeans until they're around his thighs. He breaks the kiss, then, pushes Steve back just a little so that there's room to look down and see the moment his hand reaches in and connects with Steve's cock. "Tony," Steve groans, his lips against Tony's forehead and his breath wet on his skin.

"I want to try something," Tony says and brushes his lips against Steve's cheek before moving his wrist just enough that he can tell Steve feels it by the way he shudders.

"Anything," Steve breathes and balances himself by bracing his arm on Tony's shoulder. "You know that."

Tony _does_ and that's what makes it makes it so surreal. 

He presses another kiss to Steve's temple, brushes his thumb against a nipple, and opens his eyes so can see Steve hear him say it. "I want you to fuck me."

Heat―either desire or anger, maybe both―flashes behind Steve's eyes. "Tony you don't have to–"

"I want to, though." Tony plays dirty and gives Steve's cock a few tugs. "At least, I want to try."

Steve squints his eyes like Tony's out of focus. "I don’t expect that, at all."

Tony stills his hand to drive home just how serious he is. "I know you don't. Hell, it might not even be your preference," he adds, giving words to his only real concern.

"It's–"

"But I want to give it the ol' college try. Again." Tony cuts him off to say before Steve can finish. "If you'd be up to it, that is."

"If I would be..." Steve repeats back, looking no less confused before he changes his tone and jokes, "you're not exactly in college anymore."

Tony leans in and kisses him again. "Look who's talking."

"You sure?" Steve breaks off to say.

It's a loaded question for a lot of reasons, but Steve's hand on his hip makes it too difficult grasp the weight of everything Tony's agreed to do since he joined up with Steve. "Yeah, I'm sure." 

"Ok," Steve mutters to himself, and then repeats himself louder. He rolls onto his back so that he can shirk off the jeans constricting his thighs. It's not the sexiest look, but his eagerness makes up for it, and Tony's dick is beginning to regret that he put on pants after leaving the shower. Tony leans forward and tugs off the jeans and briefs and even the socks from Steve's feet and throws them behind him.

Steve's leaning back on his elbows, naked from the waist down, and Steve’s cock bounces against the cotton of his t-shirt as he readjusts his position. Comfort is a good look on him, with the firelight highlighting the definition of his thighs and the shadow behind his cock. This may be Tony's favorite version of Steve so far, and he hopes that whatever follows is memorable, because he needs something to confirm he did this, a mental postcard proclaiming _you were here_.

Tony crawls over to Steve and settles on top of him, knees on either side of Steve's waist and hands bracketing his head. Steve drops down to the mattress, so Tony has to lean a little bit forward to kiss him, but it leaves Steve's arms free to slip down the back of Tony's sweatpants and cup the flesh of his ass. "Why are you still wearing pants?" Steve asks and flips them so Tony's now the one on his back. Tony reaches for Steve's shirt, and Steve tugs it off before shrugging down Tony's sweatpants.

He can feel the soft heat from the fire on his bare legs and his oversensitive dick. He's sweating already, the cool air that hit him after the shower forgotten now that Steve's on top of him, close enough that Tony feels Steve's hard cock against his hip. "There's lube in my bag," Tony whispers as Steve mouths along his collarbone.

“Mmhmm." Steve doesn't stop his mouth, just tips his neck a little lower and presses a series of kisses along Tony's shoulders.

It feels good, which is a problem, because it's distracting him from the task at hand, and he continues to insist, "the bag's in the room."

"I know," Steve says and goddammit, Tony can feel him smile against his skin. "I'm in no hurry."

 _But what if I am?_ Tony thinks, but doesn't say. Time is ticking, silent but constant.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of you." Steve punctuates that statement by kissing his way down Tony's chest, leaving a wet trail wherever his lips go. He kisses against Tony's nipple, slow, languid, and then does the same to the other. Tony takes a deep breath and forces his focus on the subtle sensation of Steve's tongue. It’s barely there, the idea of it disappears if he thinks too hard about the scratchy sheet underneath him or the way Steve keeps accidentally bumping his dick, but when he when looks down, actually sees Steve’s tongue on his nipple, the touch goes all the way to his groin.

Steve keeps at it like he has nothing on the horizon and Tony almost gets to a place where his whole mind is focused on where Steve’s mouth meets his skin, but Steve breaks the spell and crawls lower and lower, until he’s looking up at Tony through thick blond eyelashes with his lips inches from Tony’s dick. Without explaining himself further, Steve pushes Tony’s knees up until his feet are braced against the mattress, leaving him open and vulnerable.

And still without lube.

He’s about to point out that Steve should know better than to do what Tony thinks he’s about to do when Steve ducks his head past where Tony can see. It takes all of three seconds for Tony to understand what’s going on before he feels a cool, wet pressure against his hole. “Oh—” he chokes out, half from the surprise and half from the pleasure of it, the way every nerve surrounding his entrance is responding to Steve’s tongue.

Tony reaches down to grab at Steve’s hair, just because he needs to grab for something and the second his fingers graze the top of Steve’s head, Steve moans, but keeps going, like he’s enjoying himself. Tony doesn’t pull or push; it’s such a small gesture, lightly running his fingers through Steve’s soft hair, but it helps him complete the loop, as if he’s stuck in some sort of circuit of pleasure that begins and ends where Steve’s mouth is finding all these ways to wring sounds out of him. On one side of his body, the heat from the fire is almost burning, a perfect contrast to Steve’s mouth and breath on his rim. There must be some technique Steve’s employing, because he has a way of making every movement hit right where Tony needs to feel it, a way of sending shivers up Tony’s spine and across his body.

The sight of Steve when he pulls away—messy hair, glistening wet mouth, satisfied smile—should be in the hall of fame for the desirably obscene. Tony loves it and he leans up just enough that he can grab Steve's shoulders and pull him closer. "I'm not done," Steve protests, though he goes willingly into Tony's arms and presses a kiss to the corner of Tony's cheek.

Steve begins to stand up, slowly, telegraphing the movement, and it's with great trepidation that Tony lets go. He listens as Steve runs—not walks—to the bedroom and rustles through their things. Hazy thoughts flit through his brain, but none of them catch, none of them are heavy enough to sink and settle into him. "Hi," Tony mumbles as Steve walks across the mattress and returns to his position between Tony's spread legs. "You're good at that."

"Uh-huh." Tony's grateful he doesn't add _so I've been told_. Steve bends down and kisses the sensitive skin of Tony's upper and inner thigh. He leaves a wet trail as he continues upward to delicately kiss one, then both, of Tony's balls before taking one into his mouth. Tony makes a sound at the back if his throat that almost covers up the pop of a plastic cap.

It's involuntary and in complete contrast to the deep curiosity and burning need that's taken over Tony's higher brain function, but he stiffens. Steve must notice because he runs a soothing hand down Tony's outer thigh and dips his head lower to lick a strip up the crack of Tony's exposed ass. "Fuck," Tony mutters, because it shouldn't feel as good as it does.

"Ready?" Steve asks, his grin just visible above Tony's pelvis. He strokes Tony's hip and places a slick finger to Tony's entrance.

Tony reaches out for Steve's hand by his side and rubs his thumb against the skin. He wishes this wasn't as big of a deal as it is, that it didn't feel so much like a leap of faith, but it does. "Yeah, I think so."

Steve's finger slips past the tight and wet ring of muscle easily. "Clench," Steve says and then licks a long strip up Tony's cock when Tony follows through. Like this, Tony feels all of it, every little uncomfortable part, but then he releases when Steve slides the tip of his cock into his mouth, and the discomfort goes away.

It's not that bad, and _that's_ really good. "Ok," he tells himself. "Ok." The second comes out a little closer to a moan, because Steve's begun to move his finger just a little further as his cheeks hollow and Tony feels the suction of his mouth in full force.

Steve continues, in, out, in, out, and then _there_ and Tony has to breathe through the pleasure. A quick look down reveals Steve with a smile that's only in his eyes because his mouth is otherwise occupied. Steve slips another finger in and somehow that goes a little better. "Clench," he repeats, and Tony does and holds it and focuses his mind on how Steve’s mouth feels like warm wet velvet, and not the strange intrusion.

When he finally lets go, his muscles feel light and relaxed and Steve's two fingers move quickly without the impediment. "You're so good," Tony has to say, because Steve is, and not only just for doing this like he never has to stop. Steve chooses that moment to crook is fingers and send more sparks that radiates up and outward and along Tony's skin. "Fuck," Tony swears and he bites his lip and turns his head so he can stare at the fire in the fireplace with unfocused eyes. "Just... Fuck."

Steve's mouth releases Tony's dick with a plop and the cool air on his wet skin causes Tony to shiver. "How do you feel?" Steve asks. He begins to pump Tony's dick in time with the rhythm his fingers are using to fuck Tony, all the while watching Tony for whatever reaction he's waiting on and Tony's still a little too confused to give. "We can stop if you–"

"No, no, no," Tony turns his head and rambles when both of Steve's hands go still. "In no uncertain terms—you aren't stopping anything."

"Whatever you say, Tony." Steve says it so fondly, his eyes crinkle.

Tony takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. "Damn right, whatever I say."

Steve chuckles and then Tony can feel nothing more than the softness of his lips stretching over the head of his cock and the rhythm of his two fingers finding his prostate. The pleasure builds on itself, additive yet somehow limitless, like the crest of a wave with no shore in sight, and Tony's pretty sure that if they had to end right now, this feeling is as good as any orgasm.

A third finger finds a place next to the other two and Tony clenches without being told, feeling like he discovered a secret he was supposed to know all along and never did. Steve surprises him by sliding so far down on his cock that his nose is buried in Tony's pubic hair, and act that leads to a broken off moan that's so loud Tony throws an arm over his mouth. He doesn't have words, not anymore, so he lets himself groan into the flesh of his arm and keep track of the way Steve's fingers stretch him, fill him, take him.

When Steve pulls away—because of course, that's the whole plan—it's a loss, and not just because Tony's grown to like the way it feels, but because he's liked the sense of purpose it gave his pleasure. Now there are so many choices in front of him, factors of different positions and capabilities and experience. This, at least, he knows he’s good at.

Steve crawls up until they're face to face and Tony has to move his arm so they can kiss. It's messy, wild, like for a moment Steve’s lost the battle with his own self control and Tony can feel just how turned on Steve is based on the way his hard cock is jutting against his stomach. Tony threads his fingers through the hair on the nape of Steve’s neck and pulls him even closer. He doesn’t care that their teeth clang or that Steve wobbles where he’s balancing on his elbows and knees, he just needs to know it’s Steve above him and around him, surrounding him in every sense. He chases Steve’s lips when he pulls away and grumbles when Steve pushes himself high enough that he’s out of reach. “I have a plan,” Steve declares with all the determination of an Avengers mission, but not all of the confidence.

Tony lifts himself so that he’s leaning up on his elbows and grins. “Why am I not surprised?”

It isn’t an eye roll, _per se_ , but a fond, exasperated look crosses Steve’s face and he flops down on the mattress beside Tony. Tony looks down at Steve who’s laying stupidly naked below him. “I want you to ride me,” Steve says, and he doesn’t look so sure about that.

“ _Yes_ ,” Tony responds like he’s been stuck wandering a desert and has just seen water. It’s not exactly what he envisioned when he has said ‘fuck me,’ but that doesn’t change how much he likes the idea. He likes the idea so much he can’t think of anything else and he gets stuck staring at Steve’s face and imagining what it would be like to sink slowly onto his cock.

“Tony?” Steve asks after a little while.

Tony shakes his head and tries to actually see Steve in front of him and not the image of his face while they fuck. “Yeah?”

Steve cocks an eyebrow and glances at his own erection. “Now would be as good a time as any,” he says, and breaks out into a nervous giggle.

There’s a few seconds where all Tony does is take it in, but then his eyes follow Steve’s and he sees both of their cocks, furiously hard and wanting, and it becomes real that he has to do something. “You’re right, now’s good,” Tony mutters because there’s a difference between thinking and doing. He grabs the bottle of lube out of Steve’s hand and pushes himself up on his knees so that he can straddle Steve easily. This position leaves Steve’s cock rubbing against his ass, and Tony conducts an experiment and grinds back on it just to see what Steve does.

Steve gasps, and then swallows like he’s trying to contain something. He’s holding himself back, Tony can see it in the way his hands are spread wide across the sheets and his breath is purposefully controlled. Tony grabs one of Steve’s hands and holds it in his―he smiles at Steve while clasping it close and hopes at least a tiny part of the affection he’s feeling shows―before laying the hand on his waist and rising on his knees to better position himself. He squirts a little bit of lube on his fingers and reaches between his legs to coat Steve’s cock, all the while moving the head closer and closer to his own entrance.

Sinking down on Steve’s cock feels nothing like it did to have Steve’s fingers inside. The sensation is more of fullness, the angle different and unexpected. Tony takes it slowly and is straining his thighs in the process; every half-inch that slips in hits a new set of nerve endings. Steve watches without blinking, his mouth tight, like he's schooling himself to appear unmoved and is failing miserably.

"Steve," is all Tony says when he bottoms out, because he's run out of any other words. Steve's response is to tighten his grip on Tony's hip and nod as if he knows exactly what Tony means. Right here, right now, all Tony can focus on is the realization that at some point his body ends and Steve begins, but he's not sure where. He had been expecting it to feel like the converse of what it had when Steve bottomed, opposite in ways he couldn't tell if he was going to enjoy or not. Yet it's more like he's listening to the same song with the base instead of the treble turned all the way up.

Tony can see Steve taking in big breaths, his chest heaves with the effort, and Tony splays his hand across Steve's pecs to feel them rise and fall while he tries to get his bearings. Steve rubs circles into his skin, slowly growing more relaxed and content to just be there. _Content_ isn't enough for Tony, so he pushes himself higher on his knees and appreciates how the glide feels like it's opening him up a little more. He gets high enough so that the head of Steve's cock is the only thing stretching Tony's rim, and then sinks down again, this time with a little more confidence.

That earns him a sound that comes from the back of Steve's throat, one low and guttural that vibrates up his body. Tony closes his eyes and does it again and concentrates on the way the word _tight_ feels against every micron he’s sharing with Steve's cock. On the forth thrust, he lets himself drop with a little more speed, knocking the air out of him. On the eighth, he bends back a little and manages to hit his prostate dead-on on the first try. "Fuck," he moans and chases the feeling, letting Steve's hands keep him upright and centered.

"Tony…" Steve whispers, voice strained. Tony opens his eyes to see Steve, biting his lip and staring at him with a furious intensity. Tony stops to catch his breath and leans forward to capture Steve's lips with his own. Steve mumbles against his mouth, "You doing ok?" And Tony just nods and kisses him some more.

He's perfect. _They're_ perfect.

Steve cups Tony's cheek with his hand. With the pad of his thumb, he traces Tony's lips and Tony places a gentle kiss on the finger. "Please promise you won't hate me," Steve says, and there's so much to his expression—joy and hope and just a touch of sadness.

Tony feels it, too, the depths of happiness edged with a despair so deep he wants to cry. "Never, Steve. I could never."

Steve smiles but not like he believes it. He smiles like everything is so good he doesn't have to believe it, just has to be here, warm, and with Tony close.

Or maybe that's the just Tony projecting the way his heart hurts. Maybe Tony just sees it because he's too blinded by pleasure and need to ask the obvious questions.

"I love you." The words fall out of Steve's mouth like he never meant to say anything. He clamps his mouth shut, and Tony doesn't have to hear anymore. Any response he could give, even the truth, is too banal to say.

Tony bends forward and kisses Steve, with tongue, with _purpose_ , and moves his body. His dick rubs against the ridges of Steve's stomach, the friction of skin on skin cut only by the drops of precum that coat Steve's abs. " _Yes,_ " he moans. Every twitch of sensation on his cock is amplified by the feeling of fullness in his ass, the two sensations work in tandem to make it all that much easier to shut out the rest of his thoughts.

Steve loves him and Steve's below him and Steve's cock's in him and… Tony doesn't know anything beyond that and the way Steve is gasping into his mouth. Every sound, every breath, washes across his nerves and sends signals down south, and Tony needs more—more touch, more connection, more _now_.

He grabs the hand Steve has fisted around the sheet and guides it to his own dick. The moment Steve's hand wraps around the delicate flesh, Steve makes a sound deep in lungs, like it had been Tony touching Steve's cock and not visa versa. "Fuck, yes," Tony says because he has to verbalize how good it feels, and Steve bucks up into him, entirely out of rhythm with Tony and somehow all the better for it.

Steve keeps it up, chasing his own pleasure and yet never stopping the way he's pumping Tony's cock. "God, Tony, I'm going to—" he breaks away to say.

Tony clenches down and Steve's cock. "Do it." Every thrust is echoing across his body and through his dick and prostate and lungs. He can't catch his breath and his thighs are weak and almost useless, but Steve keeps driving up, his cock hitting Tony right where it matters, and his hand never stills. "Do it," he repeats, because he's moments from breaking and he wants to feel Steve spent beneath him.

Steve comes with a shudder as he lifts his hips to fuck Tony even harder. For a moment after, he is still, even his hand on Tony's dick, the only sound is their raspy breaths. Slowly, as if he's a computer rebooting, Steve begins to unwind and relax, his body gaining life between Tony, and his hand beginning to move again.

It's gentler now, in the best way, and Tony braces his hands on Steve's shoulders and enjoys the soft, easy smile on Steve's face. He has a chance to just breathe and enjoy the pleasure shaking around his body and building upon itself, every piece joining to form a bright and weightless feeling.

"Steve," Tony gasps when he comes and makes a mess of Steve's chest. "Steve," he repeats as he loses the ability to keep himself upright and sinks down against Steve's body.

Except for the wood crackling feet away from them, it's quiet, serene, brilliant in how still it is. Steve presses a kiss to Tony's hair; Tony sighs and vows to never get up.

The moment doesn't last, because it can't, because Tony has stiff muscles and is smeared with his own come. He dislodges himself as gracefully as he can with the remaining vestiges of strength, and Steve does his part by standing up and leaving to search the cabin for something to clean up with. He returns with a damp rag and nothing else. "You ok?" he asks Tony and hands him the rag. Tony stares at it for a few seconds and then grabs Steve's wrist instead to pull him down on the mattress.

Steve inelegantly flops beside him with an "umph" and they both break out laughing. "I'm ok," Tony tells him and he cleans himself up before wiping off the come drying on Steve's chest. "Are you?"

Steve smiles and it's no longer the easy, sated one from before. "I'm great," he lies, Tony knows because he looks away as he says it, and he grabs the blankets heaped in a pile on the floor beside them.

 _Just say it_ , Tony tells himself, but he just takes one end of the blanket instead and pulls it on top of his naked body before lifting Steve's arm over him so that Steve's chest is flush against his back.

He's warm. Tony's not sure he can ever look at him again.

"Good night," he says with his eyes on the fire.

Steve just kisses the juncture of his neck and shoulder in response.

 

* * *

 

It’s the chill that awakens Tony. The fire in front of him has burned down to just a few embers that periodically cast shadows on the ceiling, but give off little heat. A draft has replaced the warm glow on his skin, one Tony suspects another blanket would do nothing to fix. Steve’s arm is slung around his stomach, holding him close, holding him still, breathing against his back and leaving a damp sheen of sweat that chills as soon as Tony extracts himself from Steve’s grasp. As gently as he can, he tucks in the edges of the blanket under Steve and lifts himself off the mattress. He counts it as a win that Steve doesn’t even stir.

Tony’s clothes are in a pile on the floor and he goes around finding any extra layers he is going to need. It’s a familiar set of motions—he pulls up the long underwear, puts on an extra t-shirt, makes sure his jeans are tucked into the freshest pair of wool socks he can find. All the extra layers do their job in stopping the cold creeping into his bones, but it’s a futile effort, Tony knows. He can only try so hard to stop the inevitable.

There’s a detective novel tucked in the end table and Tony finds a pen serendipitously next to it. Tony rips out a page near the back where there’s some empty white space. It takes a few tries to get the ink running, but it flows eventually, and with it, everything in Tony’s mind.

 _Dear Steve,_ he starts and debates crossing it out and throwing the book into the garbage and the pen across the frozen lake. He doesn’t, driven by his self-destructive need to fix things, driven to leave and at least make sure Steve knows it wasn’t because of him. 

Tony sighs. This was always how it was going to end. He should have known it that first morning when they ate in the diner. He writes _, I have something I need to do and it means I have to leave._ Steve wouldn’t accept the word ‘something’.

_I know what it looks like disappearing while you’re asleep, but I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t important. I hope you understand that._

Steve won’t understand.

 _These last few days—_ Tony begins to write and he reads the words over and over before finishing the sentence— _have been wonderful and awful and I wouldn’t trade them for anything._

It looks so stupid written down like this; it captures nothing Tony is feeling.

There’s a word for the twist in his gut as his eyes drift to the fireplace, to the fear of loss so strong he’d do anything, including cutting all ties, just to prevent it.

_I love you, Steve._

_And I think, of all my regrets, not telling you that is my greatest. I just never knew how to think it._

Tony struggles to swallow. He’d move heaven and earth if it meant he could protect Steve.

_You can’t go where I need to, and that’s always been the problem. And it’s ok. I’m ok with it._

_Stay safe. Go home. Rebuild the life you deserve. Save the world without me._

Tony wipes a tear from his eye.

_Yours, Tony._

That's it. That's all Tony has to do before he steps outside and does his part, but all he wants to do is linger, to remember these walls in the hours before and not as they are now.

He doesn't, because he can't, because it would ruin so much if he doesn't leave as soon as he can.

The wind blows outside, heavy and fierce, picking up the snow and whipping it against Tony's face, and building deep drifts along the trees. In some places the snow only reaches his ankles, in others, his hip, making it hard to go back to where he remembers the road was. Tony has the directions all confused in his mind, it's like he's battling a dozen of mental maps that are telling him to go every which way, and he has the strongest urge to turn around, but he keeps lifting his boots and trudging forward.

It's not him that's confused. Tony has a photographic memory, he knows the way back to the road like he knows the creases on Steve's forehead or the schematics for the Mach 1―that is in total and forever. The force pulling him aside his path belongs to another being all together.

It's a being Tony can't ignore any longer. "I can feel you, you know," he tells the AI squatting in his brain. "And if you could convince me to stay, I wouldn't be out here." The temperature is a little warmer, but that mostly translates to more freezing liquid seeping into his boots and jeans. "Trust me. I don't like this anymore than you do."

He reaches the mound of snow still concealing the bike but doesn't debate using it. Steve will need it, and Tony has a ride of his own. Instead he picks a path through the snow as fast as he can manage, focusing on the heavy steps of his feet.

"But I _have_ to, and you know it," he continues. If someone were to actually see him now, they'd think he’s monologuing into the void like a madman. Tony supposes that feels right. "And you're going to help me."

His feet lock below him and he stumbles into the snow.

"You can't stop me." Standing up is harder than it should be, as if he's carrying another person on his shoulders, but he does it and takes another forward step.

The wind whips against Tony's face, as uncaring about his will to go on as his AI is.

"He needs to be destroyed, and we're the only ones who can do it."

He falls again and barely catches himself with his hands. Snow melts through his gloves as he tries to push himself up.

"I don't even know why it's so fucking important to you I stay!"

Tony gets one more step before he's suddenly back in the snow, trying to crawl his way out. The image of the warm fire and Steve's warm arms plays in front of him, more like a movie than a memory, but the pleasant feeling it inspires is Tony's alone.

"If I go back, the fight comes to us, and he's not ready. He’ll freeze. He’ll break."

The picture of Steve laying peacefully from just half an hour ago is replaced with another. In it, Steve lays prone, peaceful in an unsettling way, but his body and his shield is covered in blood. The very spatter of red looks familiar, like Tony's seen it before in a book or a newspaper, but Tony can't place where.

Until he can.

"No, no, no, no, no—" he repeats in sobs under his breath. It's not so much the image—Steve dead on the courthouse stairs—that breaks him, but the feeling at its core. It twists him up until all he knows is despair and regret, and then nothing matters, nothing besides, _not this, not again_.

Tony reaches out and grabs nothing but heavy snow that crunches in his hands. He tries to get his weight over his elbows so he can use the leverage to push himself up, but his muscles give way at the movement. Snow is seeping in everywhere but his back.

If he just turned around...

"I won't let you stop me," he says, but he has to force the words out.

Other memories crowd his thoughts and he doesn't recognize any of them besides the fact that they're from a time when the world's enemy was Hydra, and Tony's enemy was Steve. In one, he tries to lure Steve into a trap in order to destroy him, and Tony hates that, too. If he turns around, he could hold Steve close and pretend his AI never had to make that choice.

If he turns around, he won't ever leave.

Tony gets a knee under him. For a minute he struggles to do anything else, but he pushes, and pushes, and pushes despite it. He pushes until he has nothing left to give. He pushes until he falls again.

"I'll die, if you keep on doing this. That's your choice. You can help me, or you can let me die here." It’s not the first time he’s been this close to freezing in the snow. Large chunks of Tony's skin are numb to the cold. "You know I will."

It's his AI, after all.

Three minutes later, a warm mesh covers Tony's body, warming him and acting as a buffer between his skin and cold metal that follows. It's an old model of the Iron Man armor, one of the ones Tony stashed away years ago, but it comes like Tony expected, like he knew his AI would send it to do.

Tony stands up, with barely any sensation in his skin, ready to end the Supreme Leader of Hydra.


	6. The Things You Cannot See, but Know Are There.

“What do you want?” the waitress asks Steve, one hand on her hip and a pot of coffee in the other.

Steve holds out the empty cup for her to fill and tries his best to smile politely. “The Usual,” he orders, because that’s what eggs, bacon, and toast is called on the menu.

The waitress takes the menu from the table and smiles. “Coming right up.”

The coffee’s hot, better than any he’s had on this entire trip. A blurb on the back of the menu mentioned they roast the beans not too far from the restaurant. Steve’s sure Tony would have appreciated it more than he does. That thought subconsciously encourages him to finger the folded piece of paper in his pocket.

He pulls it out and unfolds it again. It’s been three hours since he found it on the fireplace mantle, but it’s already tearing at the creases because he can’t stop re-reading it. Steve had left the cabin immediately after he found the letter and searched for any trace of where Tony could have gone, only to discover that the wind had covered Tony’s tracks, leaving Steve alone with the bike but no leads.

The letter hurts, every word hurts, but Steve reads it over, again and again. Tony’s done the exact thing Steve has been asking for all week—leave—but now Steve finds himself unprepared. The letter bothers him: even as he’s trying to understand, he knows it’s telling him so much more than what’s written.

Tony’s in danger.

Plans and strategies pass through Steve’s mind, he evaluates scenarios with a precision that’s unfamiliar to him now. His mind doesn't work as fast as it used to, too easily clouded by fear of his own inabilities and the direness of the situation. Steve's options are limited if Tony doesn’t want to be found. He feels alone, lost, his brain trying to find all the loose ends it can but failing to find something to grab on to, something to _do,_ like he's missing an important piece of the puzzle. _If only someone could help,_ he thinks, surprised the idea even enters his mind.

Just last night, Steve had been sure they had had it figured out. It’s always stupid, he knows, to think that; it’s always a one-way trip to disappointment and the heavy empty space Steve’s been trying to crawl his way out of. As he looks around at all of the art hanging on the diner’s walls, he can’t help but think about how Tony should be here with him, even if Tony wouldn’t have let them stop for breakfast in the first place because he would have been so worried about getting caught. Steve doesn’t care about that anymore, he can’t, the fact that he ever did feels strange, like he woke up from a dream and can only now see what was unreal about it.

“Here you go,” the waitress says, catching Steve off guard, and placing his plate of breakfast down on the table so fast that Steve scrambles to pick up the letter and stuff it back in his pocket.

Steve says, “Thanks,” as a reflex and reaches for a slice of toast.

The waitress doesn’t leave.

Steve repeats his gratitude, which is being quickly used up, and moves on to the eggs.

“You want to talk about it?” she asks.

“No,” Steve responds. Instead of looking at her and encouraging more conversation, he stares at a painting behind the couple dining in front of him. It’s abstract, more mood than anything else, but Steve feels the way the bursts of gold and red light up the rest of the black canvas. It reminds him of a pair of blue eyes and a sunrise he once saw from the mansion’s roof after a long mission.

“Someone broke your heart?”

Steve rips his eyes from the painting. The menu had proudly proclaimed that everything on the walls was the work of local artists, but Steve's not sure how anyone could paint where everything is so cold and grey. "I don't think it's any of your business."

Normal people would take that as a cue to leave, but the waitress doesn't. Steve's almost impressed. "It just looks like you want to talk about it. You know, last year when Johnny left, I locked myself in my room for a month, and didn't speak to a single living soul. Until, you know, I did. And it got better." Steve almost asks " _who's Johnny?_ " but she doesn't give him a chance to get a word in. "What I'm saying is that you need your besties--"

"Besties?" Steve says, too amused to scoff.

"Yeah, you know, your people. Your squad. Your team." She takes that moment to fill up his half-empty coffee cup.

Steve blinks, takes a scalding sip, and allows those words to settle in. "How far is it from here to Chicago?" he asks.

She squints for the second it takes her remember, and then says, "Uhhhh... Last time I drove it was eight hours? Depends on if you stop a lot, I guess."

He throws a few twenty-dollar bills on the table and walks out before she has a chance to say anything else. Steve doesn't need to see a map to know he can do the trip in four.

 

* * *

 

Tony's sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee and pretending the read the paper; the headline reads “Attacks Against Inhumans on the Rise”. He spent the afternoon tweaking his armor, making small adjustments and now he's tired and waiting, for what, he only has a vague idea, but his anticipation is heavy and brittle. His hand is over a phone he's trying not to pay attention to, like it's a magnet he can't pull away from.

On it, he's pulled up dozens of articles about Hydra and Carol and Rhodey. Small things fill in the details. There's a picture of Sam in Philadelphia and Rhodey’s mother crying in the front row. A few blurbs about the temporary queen of Latveria. An article in Business Week about Stark Industry’s future. All loose ends he had been avoiding in the last week.

At the moment, Tony's just counting down the minutes until all those things get the closure they need. He checks the phone again and hopes the number he types in goes through.

Someone answers. "Carol?" he asks when whoever it is doesn't say anything.

"TONY?!" Tony has to pull the phone away from his ear for a second.

He smiles. "The one and only."

"Where the hell have you been? We've been looking--"

"I'm ok," he cuts in to assure her.

"I asked where you are, not how you're doing. But I'm glad you're doing alright." Tony can't tell if he's projecting the way anger diffuses into regret in her voice, or if she's genuinely concerned. He opts for the later, because it's Carol, and he needs something to believe in.

"I need to ask you to do something for me," he starts with no intention of answering her original question and no method of addressing their earlier conflict with the little time they have. "When you see Steve, I need you to tell him that I meant it. Every word."

"Tony, I have no idea what you're..." He can hear Carol pacing on the other end of the line. "Wait, do you know where Steve is?"

That's also a question he's not going to answer. "Can you do that?"

"No, Tony, I won't. You can tell him your--"

The door opens behind Tony, letting a burst of cold air in, and for a beat, time stops. Tony can feel the breath in his lungs, the cotton of his shirt. He ends the call.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't show," Tony drawls, a false smile on his lips and a dozen escape plans in his mind, even if his muscles feel as sore as they did a couple of days ago, the lack of sleep erasing any sign of his recovery.

"I missed you too much to ignore such a perfect opportunity to visit."

It's the way he talks, Tony decides. That's how you know this Steve's a fraud.

He comes into view and takes the seat across from Tony. He doesn't look like he came straight from a jail cell; he's clean shaven and his hair has been cut just right. He looks like people imagine Steve, hell, how Tony often imagines him, but there's something wrong underneath, something in his eyes that betrays who he is.

"Can't say I feel the same way," Tony says, calm and confident, a man ready for the cliff’s edge.

"That's a shame." It sounds like Steve means it. "Aren't you going to ask why I'm here?"

"Nope," Tony answers and puts extra emphasis on the 'p'.

He already knows because Steve told him. _He knew me better than I knew myself. He knew that I love you—_

"I _am_ curious what your plan is." Tony looks around the cafe and finds it mysteriously empty. Chances are this fucked up version of Steve isn't working alone. That’s fine, because Tony’s plan is simple: Let the bastard in front of him kidnap him to somewhere remote and then take him down, any means necessary.

"I don't need a plan to visit my old friend, Shellhead." The tone of his voice is all wrong. Tony wants to throw-up.

He smiles instead and puts as much venom into it as he can manage.

 

* * *

 

By the time Steve pulls off the interstate and onto the city roads, it's dark. Yellow street lights shine off the pavement wet from melting snow. Chicago feels worlds away from the small towns and pine forests he just left. The change in scenery amplifies the electric current flowing through Steve's veins since he got on his bike; there's potential here he's been avoiding, possibility he didn't want.

Months on the road do nothing to quell the uneasy fear that Steve has been fighting at the thought of having to look Sam in the eye.  

Steve rings the doorbell to Sam's apartment as soon as his feet hit the stoop, because that fear only matters so much in the face of the threat Steve is about to face. His shield sits heavy on his back. Rayshaun answers, a young man who also goes by the name of Patriot, another hero who was forged in Hydra's world. There are so many people like him, people who stepped up when their heroes failed them. Steve’s always appreciated the inevitability of the kids who take it upon themselves to save others when no one else will, but he especially appreciates it now.

“Shaun!” Sam calls from somewhere upstairs. “Who is it?!”

Rayshaun’s still staring wide-eyed at Steve. He looks like he’s seeing a ghost. “Are you the evil one?” he asks Steve with all the bluster of a kid who’s trying to appear in control of the situation.

Steve shakes his head. Maybe, someday, people will see him and not ask that question. “No,” he answers. “Though, I guess I wouldn’t tell you if I was.”

Rayshaun studies him for a few seconds more, and then opens the door wide behind him. “The evil one wouldn’t have pointed that out,” he explains, sheepish in a way Steve’s used to seeing when people realize he’s Captain America. Steve follows him up the stairs to the third floor of the brick three-flat and through an open door at the end of the stairs. Rayshaun announces to the entire apartment, “Look who I found.”

Sam pokes his head out from behind a hallway. “Huh?”

Steve’s standing there, feeling like an idiot with his hands in the pockets of his leather coat, and says, “Hey.”

“Steve?” Sam is rooted to the spot he’s standing in.

“It’s me.”

“The good one. I asked,” Rayshaun adds.

Sam grins. “You look like crap.”

“Thanks, Sam. I missed you, too.” Steve means it. It feels much better than he ever thought it would. “I need your help.”

“The Avengers are on it,” Sam says. “We’ve got a couple of leads on him, if you want to join us. I was about to go—”

Steve cuts him off, not at all sure of the context. “What are you talking about?”

“Your doppelganger. You know, looks like you do if you took a shower, but is also a Nazi.” Sam explains, like those words make sense when strung together.

“Wait, what? I thought he was in prison… oh, no…” Steve trails off as the rest of it comes together. “Tony’s missing.”

Sam squints, apparently not surprised by the information. “I know. No one’s been able to find him.”

“No, no, no, not like that,” Steve explains frantically. “He’s been with me for the last week. Or he _was_ , until I woke up this morning, and he was gone.”

“ _You_ found Tony?” Sam asks, and Steve sees the wheels behind his eyes turning.

Steve shakes his head. “No, he found me.” That’s all he has to explain anything that’s happened since Tony joined him on the road.

“And where exactly did he disappear?” Sam asks. He has other questions, too, Steve can see it in the quirk of his lips, but he keeps them to himself.

“Northern Michigan?,” Steve explains. “At least eight hours ago.”

“That’s… concerning.” He says it like he knows it’s an understatement. “Okay, then. That’s the priority. I’ll send out an alert to the Avengers and we—”

“No,” Steve cuts him off to say. “Not yet.” Sure, they’ll need the rest of the Avengers, but notifying them all right now feels like an invasion of the privacy Tony had been trying to maintain when he hadn’t told anyone where he was. Also, “We don’t know how much that Hydra bastard knows right now. He could have no idea Tony’s been with me since he went missing, and we don’t want to point him in Tony’s direction.”

“It’s up to us, is what you’re saying.” Sam gestures to Rayshaun, who’s so engrossed in his phone that he doesn’t even look up to acknowledge them. “Kids these days,” Sam mutters as he rolls his eyes, and Steve knows it’s only half of a joke. “Why don’t we start with what we know and what we don’t, and go from there.”

Steve follows Sam into the small kitchen with an over-the-sink window that looks directly at the brick wall next door, and waits as Sam pours a couple glasses of water. “How have the Avengers been?”

Sam hands him a glass and takes a long sip. “It’s been good. We’ve mostly been busy the last couple of days trying to find your evil twin. Guy broke out of the most secure prison in the world.”

“Did he have inside help?”

“Of course he did,” Sam answers, world-weary and frustrated. “So…you and Tony have been doing what, exactly?”

“Me and Tony…” Steve starts but isn’t sure what more there is to say about the matter. He’s thinks if he starts to really talk about it, he'll never stop, like there is no bottom to the well of feelings he has, but he’d rather leave that well undisturbed at the moment. “I don’t know what to say.”

Sam scoffs, not at all impressed. Steve knows just from the face Sam makes that he’s going bring this up later. “We’ve decided to take on a divide-and-conquer strategy. Tonight, I was going to check out some old steel factories nearby on the lake. It’s one of many leads we have, so it’s probably nothing.”

“Maybe.” _Probably._ “But it’s worth a shot. What's the rest of the team doing?”

“Thor’s focusing on the greater New York area, Vision has the rest of the East Coast, Carol’s been coordinating from Alpha—”

A red and gold blur appears at the window. _Tony_ , is Steve’s first thought, but the proportions are all wrong, and he reaches for his shield.

It’s Sam’s hand that stops him from grabbing it. Rayshaun runs into the kitchen at the sound of the commotion and quickly unlocks the window. Through it awkwardly climbs Ironheart, her armor just a little big to fit through easily. Riri pulls off her helmet as soon as she’s standing straight up, revealing a girl smiling like she knows a secret.

Rayshaun’s grinning, too. “I know the two of you are old and all that, but did either of you think to contact her?”

“Do you know where Tony is?” Steve asks, because _no,_ he didn’t.

“Not exactly,” Her smile falters, but only a little. “But I have an idea, if the timeline Shaun gave me is correct. Tony’s been with you—” she looks at Steve straight on, directing the question to him, “—pretty much the entire time since he woke up from he coma?”

“Yeah, I’d say so.”

“Well, since his body went missing, my connection with his AI’s been spotty. He’ll just randomly time out, or disappear, or go quiet, which is  _soooo_ weird. And then, approximately four hours ago, he disappeared entirely. I can’t access him or ping him or communicate in anyway. He’s just gone.” She doesn’t sound too happy with this turn of events, but she’s also no less confident.

Steve has no idea why it matters, but it’s Sam that gives that thought a voice. “Yeah, and?”

“I’ve been speculating on how exactly the AI functions and I think the last week’s events really supports one of my hypothesizes—that it is directly connected to Tony’s real brain in some way.”

That idea fills Steve with terror. “So if you can’t access it…” he trails off, leaving the worst case scenario assumed.

“That doesn’t mean he’s dead,” Riri says, but she’s matter-of-fact about it, there’s no intent to comfort them.“I mean, the AI's been disappearing all week, and Tony’s was very much alive.”

Steve nods, because he can personally vouch that Tony’s heart has been beating. He felt it last night as he slept. “So, he could be offline for another reason, you’re saying.”

“Yeah, and that’s the thing I don’t know.” Steve can sense the frustration she feels at missing something critical and is instantly reminded of Tony. “But I know the last place where the AI accessed a WIFI router, and I think that’s a good sign, because normally he isn’t sloppy enough for that to happen.”

“You think Tony left us breadcrumbs?” Sam asks.

“His AI did, at least.” Riri smiles, sure of herself. Steve sees the plans forming behind her, Sam’s, and Rayshaun’s eyes, and feels more confident about where they’re going than he has in so long.

“We better get—”

He’s cut off by the shrill sound of doorbell, incessantly ringing. Rayshaun runs out of the kitchen and down the apartment stairs. Steve doesn’t hear him open the door or greet whoever is trying to grab their attention, but he does hear someone taking the stairs two at a time.

Jessica Drew runs into the kitchen. She’s out of breath in a way that looks like she’s been in a hurry for quite a long time. “Jess, why—”

“Oh, good, Steve, you’re here. That’s good,” she says and grabs the glass of water out of his hand without asking before taking a long gulp. “I thought that was your bike out there. I have to tell you something.”

“Is this about Stevil?” Sam asks before Steve has a chance to.

Jess scrunches her forehead, confused. “No, wait… what? It’s about Tony.”

The blood freezes in Steve’s veins, equally ready to hear something terrible as he is something good. “Tony—”

“Carol spoke with him about four hours ago—” Jess explains and Steve and Riri share a quick look of understanding. “—And according to her, he sounded… not great. She was worried, you know, given the coma and the disappearance, and all that, so she was able to track him to a coffee shop in Indiana and called me to grab Sam and check it out.”

“Does she know where he’s now?” Steve asks, gearing up to hop on his bike and continue this conversation over comms.

Jess nods vigorously. Her body language mirrors Steve, ready to jump into the fight. “Yep. She’s got a trace on him that pins him down at an abandoned steel mill over there. Not far, maybe thirty minutes from here?”

Steve looks around room at all the face preparing to put their lives in jeopardy for Tony and feels like he’s in good company. “What’re we waiting for?”

 

* * *

 

“What’s the plan?” Tony asks the Hydra-corrupted joke of a man who calls himself Steve Rogers. “Step one must have been ‘break out of jail’ and step two is ‘kidnap Tony and tie him up in an empty warehouse’, which by the way, _kinky_ , but I’m not seeing what your endgame is.”

In Tony’s defense, it had been his plan all along to have the wrong Steve standing right in front of where Tony’s being held up by his bound wrists. Steve stares straight ahead at Tony, the edge of his mouth quirked in a crooked, amused grin. “You know what my endgame is.” There’s a warmth in his voice, as if Tony _knows_ him and is just being coy, as if Steve likes that about Tony.

“Total Hydra domination?” Tony asks. If this was any other villain, he’d feel boredom at just how predictable that is, but right now he’s tense, angry, barely able to reconcile his revulsion for everything this Steve represents with the familiar face he’s looking at. “How basic of you, Steve. Don’t tell me that’s the best you can do. I’ve always expected so much from you.” Tony makes sure he says it like he’s twisting a knife.

The only way Tony knows anything he said even bothered Steve is how his shoulders tense up, just enough Tony can see them rise a little higher. “You never got it, Tony."” He circles Tony, always just a few inches closer than Tony’s comfortable with, and Tony has to repress the instinct to flinch away. “You missed the glorious rule of Hydra. We were making the world better, bringing it into the future the people of Earth deserve.”

“’Were,’ _past tense_ , being the operative word there. I would think those months in prison would have given you a chance to reflect on exactly what went wrong. Have you ever thought maybe it was because your mission sucked? That it was rotten at its core?” Tony gives a cocky smile. His hands are numb from the position they’ve been stuck in for the last hour. His lungs are still weak from coma, making his breathing labored and strained. He just wants this guy to leave him alone long enough that he can think, but Steve seems to have accounted for the fact that his presence is rendering Tony just a little stupid. “Or put in a better way—the problem is you.”

“Oh, I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it more than you can imagine.” He comes to a stop in front of Tony, his face inches from Tony’s and his breath hot on skin. Tony pushes himself back on the balls of his feet so that he can gain a little more distance and quell the nausea he's experiencing. “The problem wasn’t the message, but the messenger.”

Tony quirks his eyebrow, genuinely surprised. “Wow, Steve, that’s more self-reflection than I normally expect from you.”

“Oh, Tony.” Steve steps a little closer to Tony, making it impossible for Tony to be anything but centimeters from him. "This is what I missed about you."

"My desire to antagonize villains even during distressing circumstances?" Tony asks because he doesn't want to know what the real answer is.

Steve smiles, fond, and it's so wrong under the circumstances. "I miss how well you know me." He holds Tony's chin firm in his hand. "You were always the perfect enemy, and I was my best self when I was fighting you. The SHRA was a stroke of genius, the incursions... inspired. Of everything I encountered in the future, it was you who taught me what it means to be a hero, you who gave me the permission to fight battles for the greater good." His thumb traces Tony's bottom lip, and Tony remembers how Steve had done the same only last night.

Tony tips his head back and growls, "Stop."

Steve takes a step back far enough that Tony knows he heard him and drops his hand. "You treat me like I'm a monster." He shakes his head but keeps his eyes trained on Tony. "My mistake was not saving you when I could. Instead of being there for Hydra's rise, you were sleeping. I didn't see the full picture, you see. That was always your job, and that’s why we always worked so well together. Even when you’re wrong, I need to hear your opinion. And without you..." He sighs, looks wistfully into the distance. "I failed."

"Which is something I've been thankful for every day I've been awake," Tony spits out, because it's true and because it'll hurt him.

Steve sighs. "I would have convinced you." He takes another step back. "Like I'm going to convince you now. You're stubborn Tony, but I can beat you. And I'm stronger, this time. I'm no longer blinded by my own weakness."

"Is that right?" Tony asks, because he doesn't see it. The man before him is denser than Steve could ever be, he's weaker than Steve ever was. This Steve is missing something vital about the situation because he can't even imagine how anyone would be able to defeat him anymore. That's what Tony's been counting on.

Tony knows he can summon his armor at will, he tried it just this morning. Steve knows this, just like he knows that Tony's been keeping armors all across the world. He's certainly blocked off any entrance points from Tony. But what Steve doesn't know is that the closest armor he has is the one he just used, an old model so outdated Tony had thought nothing of storing it in a small island off Lake Superior. An experimental model from a time Tony had been playing with ways to increase his own firepower.

It ended up having enough fire power when it blew up an entire wing of his Long Island facility. Tony's used a few hours today to make sure it has more than enough to bring down the building he's standing in.

It's reckless that he didn't destroy it years ago. Tony's pretty ok with that choice.

"You used to trust me, Tony. When did that change?" Steve asks like it's some profound question.

"You can't be serious," Tony scoffs. Rain beats against the roof, louder than before, or maybe it's just louder in Tony's mind, and he feels completely alone. A load crash echoes outside as the storm rages, and Tony thinks it’s almost too tinny to be thunder. Almost. Steve doesn’t flinch at the sound. "The only reason you're still here is because Steve has the sort of morality where he can't kill you."

Of all the things that Tony's said, it's that that gets Steve's attention. "Is that so?" he says to himself under his breath and steps back into Tony's space. "And what about you, Tony? What's your morality?"

Tony wants to take the bait and fight him, but every moment he spends talking is a moment he's not focusing on moving his armor. Instead of arguing, he scowls and concentrates on the bitter hatred he feels for the man in front of him. He focuses on the way it felt to wake up and know the world had turned upside down and the way Steve looked that first morning Tony found him—defeated. For that, and everything else, Tony's going to bring the roof down on top of both them without a single regret.

“Why don’t we find out? Together.”

 

* * *

 

It started raining five minutes after Steve entered the highway, and by the time he's riding across the long steel bridge leading to the abandoned mill, he's soaked to the bone. His boots splash when they hit the dirt, water seeping out the soles, but he doesn't have time to change into something dry that won't weigh him down. With only the shield across his back, he actually misses the Captain America suit.

Jess comes to a sliding halt on her bike behind him and Steve can see the shapes of Falcon and Ironheart above. "Sam, I'm seeing an exhaust pipe near the northwest corner," Rayshaun says over the comm. He's back at the apartment, providing a little extra reinforcement as their eyes. The mill looks impenetrable—the large sliding doors have been shut and fused together, and any windows are boarded up with steel. There’s nothing else around them beside the dirt road leading to the mill and the choppy lake behind it.

Steve’s grateful for all the support, but he's also aware that every person involved is his responsibility. It chafes, just a little, to step into the leadership role; he can't help but see people whose lives depend on him when it's clear even Tony couldn't depend on him. "Ok, the plan is to enter. We’ll use stealth to our advantage. That means Sam and Riri, you take the roof. Tell us if you see any way in that we can't, and keep an eye out for anything strange. Jess, explore the north side of the facility; if you can get in, tell me and I’ll join you. I'll approach from this side." Jess nods beside him and runs noiselessly away. The facility is huge and it's minutes until she turns around a corner and disappears. Steve stands still waiting until she does to begin to move forward.

"That pipe's filled with concrete," Sam reports.

"Not seeing any alternative entrances," Rayshaun adds. "There are certainly heat signatures inside, though. First floor, in the center of the building."

"How many?"

"Two," Rayshaun says, quick and to the point. Somehow the answer is more terrifying than if he said one hundred.

He shucks off the water-logged coat as he gets closer. His body is too keyed up to relax and he shivers uncontrollably when his wet skin touches the cold air. Missions like this used to be routine, he thinks, the type of thing he could manage and get home in time for lunch, but right now is not like that. He feels unprepared, nothing like the professional he used to be.

Riri pipes in and breaks his focus. "There's something strange happening near the southwest corner. My readings are all over the place."

Steve jogs in the direction she's indicating, trails his fingers against the dust covered outer walls as he goes, but all of it just looks the same—concrete, dirt, and sand. Questions bump around in his head; would that asshole go high or low tech? Has he had time to contact his accomplices? Is he even inside? Trying to think like the enemy is one of Steve's ways to strategize how to beat them, but Steve struggles to enter into this enemy’s head.

Essentially it boils down to _why?_

Why Tony? Why Hydra? Why him? Why _now_? Especially as Steve is beginning to find his footing after so long of being haunted by those questions?

"We got some guests," Jess tells them, the sound of the wind against her communication unit muffling her voice. "I see four small boats, each holding two people. Guess what color they're wearing?"

 _Green_ , Steve thinks, because of course this is how it's going to happen. "Jess and Sam, take care of our visitors. Riri, pull back and keep your eyes on getting inside." No one replies, but he knows they'll listen, and if they don't, it'd be because they've discovered a better plan. "We can do this," he says to himself under his breath as he breaks into a run. He's not sure if he believes it yet.

"Cap, stop!" Riri yells over the intercom. Steve does, so quickly his he almost falls over from the momentum hurtling him forward.

That's when he sees an unnatural shimmer in the steel wall beside him and he gets it. He reaches out and his hand hits a hard wall. "Damn," he mutters. "It's nothing."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm..." Except he isn't, because now that he's looking, really looking, he can see that his hand is touching the wall in such a way that his fingers look like they've sunk into the metal. "Huh. There's definitely something here," he tells Riri, because she's the technological genius and he trusts her opinion. "But I still can't get through."

"Hmmmm..." She mumbles. Steve can hear her thinking. "Shaun, any chance we can find an old blueprint for this place?"

Rayshaun groans, exasperated. "You think I didn't look for that already?"

"Maybe an old aerial photo? Anything from before this weekend," Steve says and touches the wall, again. Something isn't right.

A few minutes pass, longer than Steve is comfortable with, and every drop of the cold rain echoes when it hits the steel beside him. "Wait a minute," Rayshaun mumbles and Steve represses the desire to say something that would speed up the process. "Ok, I got it, hmmmm… looks like the buildings seen some renovations."

"Send me the photos," Riri cuts in to say.

"Of course, sending in one…two…three."

Another pause fallows and Steve feels an unfortunately familiar frustration with all the things he doesn't know. "Maybe Shaun's right about the renovations, but I have a feeling no one spent money rebuilding this place so it doesn't have a door."

"Image inducer?" Steve asks even though he knows the answer. He pats down the wall beside him, trying to find something he can't see, and his fingers dig into the first seam he feels. "Yup, it's a door." The information doesn't help him that much, he can't move what's in front of him, but it does give him an idea of what he's up against. He looks up at the red spec that's Ironheart in the sky and says, "Blast it."

He manages to scurry away just in time for the repulsor to bounce right next to him, causing a loud, thunderous roar that rattles in his head. For a few seconds, the image falls away and Steve can see the metal barn door separating him from the inside. It turns back to the steel wall he saw before, but Steve has noted the location of the lock. The shield snaps it with a satisfying clink, and Steve reaches out again, past the mirage, to the slowly opening door.

"I'm in." The floor inside is concrete and dirt, the air stale on top of being chilly and heavy. He backs into the far wall, and inches closer to a large opening and source of light.

He moves until he can hear voices nearby. "What about you, Tony? What's your morality?" The words echo against the cavernous steel walls, the voice familiar to Steve's inner monologue and other-worldly in its delivery. Steve takes three deep breaths to calm his nerves.

“Why don’t we find out? Together,” Tony whispers, and Steve only hears it because of his enhanced hearing.

The wind whooshes outside, growing louder and louder, and he's flat on the floor before he even registers that that's the sound of the Iron Man armor ripping through the air. A number of things happen so quickly they might as well be happening at the same time—the steel wall beside him falls on his back, light and heat replaces the very oxygen of the building, and a loud crash brings everything down to the ground with a KAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOOM.

 _Tony,_ Steve thinks, as the world beings to turn again. His ears ring, drowning out all other sounds. "Tony!" he shouts, and doesn't even hear it. Ash coats his mouth and his eyes, and they burn as he strains to move. He's sure the entire building ended up on top of him, and if it's on top of him, that means also—"TONY!"

He has to drag himself out by his fingertips. Each effort strains his muscles past what Steve had always thought were his limit, but he does it and doesn't think of much more than Tony trying to do the same. Tony is so close, he has to be, trying to get himself out, too, because that's Tony Stark. He has to be alive.

The only thing above him is the sky and the rain pouring all over the soot on his skin, burning as it drips into his eyes. He wipes it away with the heel of his hand, blinking up at the sky to see Sam and Riri flying with all their speed to the ground. "I need heat signatures, NOW!" Steve shouts into his comm and picks his way forward to the center of the pile of steaming rubble, trying carefully to not step anywhere that could be concealing Tony's injured body.

"I got them!" Riri says, and flies to a spot only a few hundred feet on Steve’s right. He has to use all of his willpower to slow his approach to the spot Riri's hovering above, just in case he disturbs something that's about to crush Tony. "There's definitely something right here." She lifts the slab of tin roofing from below her and Steve carefully reaches out to help balance it as she does; all the while his eyes are focused on the ground, looking for a touch of olive skin and any sign that Tony's alive.

It's a flash that Steve sees instead, the light from Riri's suit reflecting off something metallic. Then Riri moves and with her, the light, and Steve only sees rain falling on something dark and molten and shaped like the Iron Man armor. "Steve?" it says and it's a voice Steve would know anywhere, kind and warm and filtered through a voice modulator.

Steve slowly gets to his knees, careful not to do anything too fast or too forceful, careful so that he can lay a hand on the familiar steel of the armor and do nothing to make any of it worse. The familiar red and gold color has been blasted away, leaving only a coal-black finish that's burned and dented all over. "Oh god," Steve says, panic flowing through his veins. He can hear his heart beat in his ears. "Tony--"

Something hot touches Steve's thigh and he looks to see Tony's gauntleted hand resting there, the metal still warm from the blast. "I'm ok," Tony mumbles. "I think I'm ok. How the fuck am I ok?" Steve runs his fingers against the armor, looking where he most expects to find latches, and unhooks the first one he can find.

The chest plate comes off first, Steve places the heavy metal beside him without looking away from Tony's bare chest. He's bruised, but not bleeding or burned, and the sight of his lungs rising and falling is enough to make Steve pause and take a deep breath of relief. "How do you feel? Any injuries?" It's an auto-pilot sort of question that Steve asks to keep Tony talking while Steve tries to open the faceplate. This armor is a slightly different model, Steve can see, not one he has any familiarity with. "How do you—" he starts to ask as he realizes that he's not sure he can figure out how to remove the rest of the armor.

Tony's gauntleted hand wraps around Steve’s wrist and guides his hand to a spot just below his chin. "It's just a little—" Steve feels a small button and gently presses it. The faceplate lifts up and it's Tony, staring right at him with his perfectly blue eyes. "Yeah, right there," Tony says, finishing up his earlier thought in his now normal voice.

Steve reaches out and runs his hands lightly over the part of Tony that's available, searching for blood and watching him for signs of pain. "What the hell did you do?" he asks.

"I had to do something." Tony doesn't hiss or moan as Steve triages him, instead his eyes follow Steve's hands with amusement. "Couldn't let him get to you first."

"I could've handled it," Steve protests, because if he ever thought he couldn't have, he knows he was wrong right now.

Tony unlatches the gauntlets and reaches out to cup Steve's face. "I just wanted to protect you."

There used to be a world out there, in some parallel dimension, where Steve became uncontrollably angry upon hearing Tony's words. Tony lied and put himself in harm’s way and did it without sharing any of the burden. In his own world, the ghost of that anger barely registers. Tony's safe and here, and Steve can just curl his hand around Tony's wrist and keep him close. "Please don't do that again," Steve pleads. He says it even though he knows the words will fall on deaf ears, he says it even if Tony will never stop being like this. Steve will love him anyway.

It will happen again, and it will hurt. Every. Single. Time.

Tony just smiles in a way that Steve knows he's thinking the same thing.

"Hey, guys," Shaun says over the intercom and shocks Steve out of the stillness of the moment. "I'm seeing some signs of life."

 _I know, Tony's fine_ , Steve thinks right before Steve's mind shifts gears and he remembers why Tony wanted to protect him in the first place.

"On it," Riri replies and flies from where she's been hovering away from the two of them to a spot near where Steve's kneeling. He stands up, on reflex, and looks down at the slab of concrete that's separating Steve and the heinous criminal who's using Steve's name.

"Steve..." Tony whispers behind him. "You don't need to be here. We can handle it"

It's a kind attempt at alleviating the burning anger that's coursing through his body, another try at protecting him. Tony’s still trying to be a shield between him and his reality; maybe Steve needs it. Maybe they’re not ready to let him choose.

Steve grabs both ends of the slab of steel roof beneath him and lifts it up. Riri steps in to help him balance it as he goes, and takes it out of his hands once it’s lifted high enough. At the same time Tony aims his gauntlet, ready for whatever ‘signs of life’ mean.

It’s not much. While Tony escaped mostly unscathed, Steve’s counterpart looks like he was just taken out of a blender.

“How is he still alive?” Riri asks.

Steve’s quiet. He knows the answer, how the serum has made it so that he can survive almost anything.

Riri looks between them. “What’re we going to do with him?”

Steve runs his hand through his hair, using the motion to ground himself to the ruins around. He wants to rip the head off this mirror image of himself.

“We’re going to take him in,” Steve begins, enunciating every word. He looks from Tony to Riri to Sam swooping through the air. His Hydra facsimile hurt these people, and millions upon millions more. If Steve killed him right here, right now, he’d be doing it for himself. “We’re going to take him in, and we’re going to put him and his hideous ideology on trial.” The bloody, barely breathing body in front of him brings to mind the bar fight from earlier in the week. It’s not just about this man, it’s about everyone he’s inspired. “We’re Avengers, and we’re not going to pretend he or what he stood for is gone for good. We’re not going to just lock him up and forget."

Still, Steve’s body vibrates with anger, it courses up his skin, down his back, through his lungs; the power to destroy right there at his fingertips. He could just reach out and—

He takes a deep breath. The straps holding the shield against his back have shifted, as if the shield has gotten heavier since he stood up, and are now pulling uncomfortably against his skin. He says, “It won’t just end with him.”

He thinks, _it’s time to get back to work_.

 

* * *

 

"Home, sweet home," Tony mutters as they step off the elevator into the hotel's penthouse. It took hours to work with the authorities and transport the criminal to a temporary holding cell while the greatest minds in the world agreed to think of a better prison. The initial discussion of how had left a bitter taste in Steve’s mouth, but he didn’t say anything as they carted him off.

Sam had offered them a night on his couch after it had become clear that Tony intended to reject any medical help and neither of them was going to make it back to New York that night. It took one look between the two of them to decide that they needed to be alone. Steve's not entirely sure how Tony managed to snag the place while maintaining his anonymity, but it's nicer than half of the palaces Steve's visited in his life—there's even a Degas sketch hanging in the foyer.

"Something like that." Steve ducks into each of the different rooms, studying their layouts and the over-the-top decor that looks something like the way a person would imagine the excess of the twenties if they only read about it in loose adaptations of books set in the era. It has very little in common with anywhere he's ever lived, too over-the-top for even the mansion or Tony's own penthouse. He feels stuck in an odd dream, disassociated from himself as he walks around, because despite the gold accents, it does remind him of the dingy and badly-lit motel rooms he's been smoking outside of for the last half year.  _This is only temporary_ , he thinks, like he did all those times before.

Nothing about the space seems to surprise Tony. Just last night they were sleeping on a mattress on the floor, yet Tony walks around the penthouse like he owns the place. Chances are he does. “What’s the plan, Cap?” Tony asks and the tone of his voice doesn’t sound right from where he’s foraging through the refrigerator.

Steve drags his eyes away from the view of the city beneath him. “The plan?” he asks, _Cap?_ he thinks.

“Yeah, I’m just curious.” He pulls out a bottle of water, takes a few large gulps, Steve tears his gaze away from how his Adam’s apple bobs as he does.

“I’m not sure I know the answer to that,” Steve says, but Tony doesn’t follow up immediately. Instead he plays at looking for food—finding canisters of mixed nuts and chips—and eating a few as he goes. Steve wonders if Tony’s only eating so Steve won’t worry and if there is a way to finally explain to him he just worries more. Tony doesn’t notice, and manages to keep his eyes off of Steve, but Steve feels the heaviness of how he’s waiting for him to get on with it. His patience is uncomfortably tangible. “Well, I have a few ideas.”

The bright city lights below their windows end in an abrupt line, bordered only by the twinkling headlamps of tiny cars passing along a highway. On the other side of that highway is a lake hidden in the darkness. He thinks about the things you cannot see, but know are there.

“Working with Sam and Jess and Riri and Shaun got me thinking about all of the teams that worked to take down Hydra when we were gone. The world didn’t need an Avengers team, it needed the Avengers spirit, and well…” Steve pauses and looks to Tony. The whole left side of his face is blue and black, he seems so tired, so drained. He needs rest, not Steve’s absent musings. “A long time ago--” _seems like forever “--_ we used to talk about making things bigger, expanding the idea, and all that. Creating an  _Avengers World_. But maybe it happened when we weren’t even looking.”

Tony’s quiet, listening. Steve sees him running through all the scenarios in his mind, rating the possibilities, being ready for any eventuality. It makes Steve’s head hurt to think about how Tony never stops thinking.

Steve continues. “I think the only thing we’re lacking in is coordination, and that’s, well, where I think I could help.” Helping sounds nice. After half a year of nothing, helping sounds great. “I want to take that idea— _our_ idea—of getting bigger and build it across the country.” Steve smiles, despite himself. “Maybe even across the world.”

Tony takes a deep breath, the kind you do when you’re trying to get your head on straight. “I take it this means you aren’t going home.”

Steve looks out behind him across the dark expanse to where he’s sure he’d see New York’s sparkling skyline if only he had the power. The most recent place he called home was his apartment with Sharon—SHIELD issued, sure, but they had made it their own. The last time he talked to her, months and months ago, she had moved out and put his things into storage. “No, I guess I’m not.” This strange, temporary, penthouse motel feels more like his home than that ever will again. This place has Tony, at least.

“It’s not a bad plan,” Tony says, quietly, like it’s the logical conclusion of everything. He stands up and doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes. “I’m going to take a shower,” he announces before he walks away without another comment.

Steve stares at the spot Tony just vacated. The room's quiet without Tony, and Steve can't for the life of him think of what he said that drove Tony away. The anger he felt only a couple days ago flashes again, white-hot, fleeting. He had been looking forward to being alone with him, having a chance to eventually speak to him about everything, and most of all, having an anchor before stepping back into his new life.

Yet here he stands, and he feels as adrift as he did all those times he drove into a new town. That same feeling overcomes him much like it did this morning when he woke up and Tony wasn't there; it threatens to overwhelm and consume him, like it did all of those months on the road. It enters his mind that he could step out into the city streets and walk until his feet are numb.

"No," Steve says to himself. He doesn't want to go back to that place.

The penthouse is huge, but Steve quickly finds steam escaping under a bathroom door and entering without a knock comes naturally after the days they spent in close quarters. The shower is attempting to imitate a stone cave; right down to the rock walls. Water flows sprinkles from the ceiling and frosted glass keeps Tony's naked body discreet. "Steve? Please tell me that's you," Tony says, sounding tentative enough that it's clear he's not confident he won't have to battle again tonight.

"Yeah, it's just me." As he walks closer, Steve pulls his t-shirt off from over his head and the steps out of the sweatpants Sam had lent him. By the time he steps into the shower, he's naked from head to toe, and the steam sits heavy on his skin, warming him to his very core. "Sorry to intrude," he says, but he doesn't sound sorry because he doesn't _feel_ sorry. He could watch the way water falls down Tony's body for hours, the way it clings to him and runs in rivulets down his shoulders and thighs.

Tony's watching him, clearly studying him, trying to figure out what the next move is, and Steve doesn't want to spend any much more time in this strange middle space they've been occupying, where they want and they want and they want but the having is somehow still at arms length. Steve remembers Tony's letter and how it felt to wake up alone and the pure relief he felt when Tony was alive. He reaches out and wraps his arm around Tony's waist before pulling him as close as he can, until they’re both standing beneath the steady stream of water.

The weight of everything crashes over Steve, his feet steady on the wet stone floor, his arms tight across Tony’s back. He wants this new life with Tony. He wants to be back and it not be at all the same. He wants to _try_ , at least.

“What happens next, Steve… I… I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do it,” Tony whispers like it’s a confession, like if he says it like this, he can still take it back.

“What’s next?” Steve asks. He doesn’t truly know, he’s not the futurist and he’s never been privy to the inner workings of Tony’s mind.

Tony sighs, leans his head to the side and presses a light kiss to Steve’s neck before saying, “You’re going to leave, and I just don’t have it in me for any of it—the part where you leave, or the part where _I leave_ , and we never talk about it. I’ll stand next to you as the world comes crashing down but the words will never come.”

It’s only been twenty-four hours since Steve found Tony’s note, but he remembers everything Tony had written down to the letter, from the way Tony crossed his ‘t’s and dotted his ‘i’s, to ‘I love you.’ “I meant it,” Steve tells him because he knows Tony remembers that first day when Tony decked him across the jaw and ran out. He has to remember that Steve loves him back. “And if we go back to the way we were, I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I couldn’t live with myself knowing—”

Tony kisses him. He kisses him and then winds his hands through Steve’s soaked hair. He kisses him and backs him into the wet stone wall behind them and breathes harsh against Steve’s lips. Steve pulls him closer because somehow there’s space between them and he won’t allow that right now. “Then don’t,” Tony somehow manages to say between biting Steve’s bottom lip and tilting his head just enough so that his mouth opens a little more for Steve.

“I—” Steve starts, but he‘s cut off by Tony’s hand slipping between the wall and Steve and gripping his ass hard enough that Steve feels his finger nails. “ _Tony_.” The sensation goes right through his skin, a jolt of electricity that starts at the spot and wraps its tendrils across the rest of his body.

Tony digs in harder, then runs his hand down Steve’s across Steve’s hip, down the part of Steve’s thigh he can reach without breaking the kiss that has Steve pushed against the wall. “Stop me, if you want, you can stop me and I’ll never say it again.”

Steve won’t, Steve would _never_ , he can’t even imagine how he’d begin to form a sentence that stops Tony’s hand from wrapping around his hard dick. He’s not sure he could say anything right now that isn’t Tony’s name or _more_ , it feels so perfect, like it’s the first time anyone’s ever touched him, like it hadn’t just been last night. He finds Tony’s cock, semi-hard and trapped between the two of them, and revels in the way Tony mouth vibrates against him. He touches Tony’s cock without the merciless pace Tony’s set. He strokes the tip with his thumb, patiently, just trying to make it feel good for Tony all the while pretending that Tony’s hand isn’t swiftly bringing him towards orgasm.

“Let me,” he says as he swats Tony’s hand away from his dick, and lets it be a little bit of a command. He gently pushes Tony away, and in one movement, quick enough that Tony won’t misunderstand him, turns them so that Tony's the one whose back is against the wall. He bends his head down, kisses a trail down Tony’s jaw and neck and collarbone, and stops when he can fit his lips around Tony’s left nipple.

“Oh,” Tony moans, the sound right above Steve’s ears, and Steve sucks, using the hand that isn’t gripping Tony’s waist for support to pump Tony’s cock, focusing on the very way Tony breathes through his pleasure and find the perfect speed and force. “Steve, fuck,” Tony says and wraps his hand across the back of Steve’s head, guiding him up and kissing him.

Steve sees stars when Tony grips his cock again, now painfully hard where it’s pressed against Tony’s stomach, and he breathes, “ _yes,_ ” against Tony’s mouth. Tony doesn’t let up, so Steve doesn’t either. He trusts Tony’s guidance. “Tony...” is all he can say before his body shakes and he comes into Tony’s moving hand.

Tony pulls him closer while Steve breathes, harsh and heavy, and reaches for Tony’s come-covered hand before setting a new, slower, rhythm with the other. “Oh, _fuck_ , yes, just like that,” Tony says and his voices echoes around the stone shower. “That’s good, _so fucking good_ , don’t stop. Don’t you ever stop.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“You, you can’t promise… _that_.” Tony sounds wrecked, destroyed, taken-apart.

Steve presses a kiss to Tony’s jaw. “It’s my promise to make,” Steve whispers, _it’s a promise I should have made sooner,_ he thinks.

Tony doesn’t question that, or maybe he thinks he can’t, but his arm holds Steve close by the neck as his body shakes and his cock spurts come across Steve’s chest.

His body goes limp with the effort of catching his breath, and Steve holds him as he gently guides them both to the wet stone floor. Tony is wrapped around him, and Steve adjusts them so that he’s sitting with Tony above him. Steve wipes the spray of the shower from his eyes and kisses the spot where Tony’s forehead gives way to hair.

“I don’t want to return to the way things used to be” he tells Tony, giving Tony his own confession.

All that time on the road had to mean something. How many times before did Steve reach a place where he thought he was irrevocably changed, only to find his world bounce back to how it was before? How many times had none of it mattered? He couldn’t return to his old life, couldn’t be Captain America if it meant being the Captain America of the past.

“Then don’t,” Tony says after a few minutes where they both hold each other close.

“Let’s build something together.” Steve kisses him, Tony runs his fingers through Steve’s hair.

“Tomorrow, first thing.”

“Tomorrow?” Steve asks.

“Yeah.” Tony smiles against his lips. “Tonight, we sleep.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure you’re ready to talk to the press?” Tony asks, and looks through the mirror to see Steve behind him as he applies makeup to his bruised face. It had taken a few calls, but he was able to get a passable suit on short enough notice for the press conference Steve had organized as soon as they woke up. It was important that the press sees Tony as a man who had everything under control. With his bruised face and sore body, it's important for Tony to feel that way, too.

Steve looks up from where he’s buttoning up a pair of navy dress slacks. He had debated himself about whether to wear the Captain America uniform or his old SHIELD outfit, tossing out points and counterpoints all morning until Tony had looked him dead in the eye and told him he didn’t have to know the answer to that yet. “Yeah,” Steve says, and his eyes drift towards the floor to ceiling penthouse windows and the cityscape beyond them. “Got to start somewhere.”

Tony lets that be. _Somewhere_ is a big place right now; he understands why Steve is jumping in whichever direction makes sense. Early this morning Tony felt him slip out of bed only to return with cold skin and the smell of cigarette smoke in his hair. Somethings take longer to change. “Just so you know…” Tony trails off, scared to continue but more scared to start off on the wrong foot. He busies himself with tying up his shoes. “After this, I’m going to back to New York. I need to check in with the company and the foundation.”

“I figured.” Steve flashes him a guarded smile. He looks movie-star handsome in his crisp white shirt. Even like this, dressed without any indication of who he is, Tony can see Captain America. Steve doesn’t need the costume.

It’s always been hard to lie to that face, to misdirect and avoid, and to steer away from the truth; that's why Tony needs to finish his thought. “And… I’ll look into an issue I’ve been having with my mind.” He pauses to turn away from Steve’s concerned expression. “My AI—the one that’s been around while I was in a coma—has been stuck in there since I woke up. It took me a while to figure it out. I need to do something about him. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, or if I’ll need some help—”

“It’s fine, Tony. Riri thought something was up.” He looks like he has other questions, but the only one he asks is, “Are you feeling ok?”

Tony’s tired and still sore from the day before. His muscles are far from fighting fit, and he’s sure he has a long road ahead of him before he’ll be back to normal. But that’s not what he thinks about.

When it comes to the multiverse, Tony’s not the number one expert, per se, but he’s pretty close. He understands the theory well enough, he knows the reality even better. It goes like this—there used to be an infinite number of universes, each one unique, some in which Steve and Tony lived different, easier, lives. But that was before they all crashed into each other, and _this_ Steve and _this_ Tony made it out alive when the rest of them didn’t.

That means something to Tony. “Yeah, I’m pretty good right now.” He never believed he’d make it to this moment, to this man, to this life. But he did—and it’s something he’s going to hold on to. “Ready to take on the vultures?” he asks, and holds out his hand.

Steve taps the shield leaning against the couch, takes Tony's hand as his answer, and holds it the entire trip down the elevator like he’s gripping on for his life, only to let go a second before the elevator beeps and the door opens.

Flash bulbs render him temporarily blind while the reporters and protesters with clever signs mob them as they step into the gilded conference room. “Where were you?” a reporter asks. She’s new to the superhero beat, otherwise Tony would remember her.

Tony represses the desire to sigh and waits until he gets to the podium to answer. “I was taking some much needed personal time. You’d be surprised how exhausting it is to be asleep for that long.”

“And you, Captain?” That’s another reporter. _John_ , Tony remembers. A veteran of this sort of stuff. “You were gone for five months.” The question is far more accusatory than the one that was directed at Tony.

Steve parrots, “Much needed personal time.” Every member of the press in attendance raises an eyebrow. “I have nothing further to say on the matter,” Steve says, like that’s actually going to shut them up.

He’s Captain America, so it does, but just long enough for Ben Urich to ask, “What does the future hold for the two of you, and for the Avengers?”

“Well—” Tony begins.

“I’m glad you asked that,” Steve says, surer than he was before. “Tony and I are restarting an old initiative of ours, dedicated to expanding the reach of the Avengers.”

“However,” Tony adds when Steve takes a breath. “Our focus this time is building a decentralized network that emphasizes coordination between the many teams currently calling themselves the Avengers, as well as teams across the globe which share the same goals as the Avengers.”

“What’s it called?” Ben asks. Steve begins to write something on a piece of paper left on the podium.

The movement distracts Tony enough he loses the train of thought. “Huh?”

“The initiative. What’s it called?” Sherri, this time, shouts out.

Steve slides the paper closer to Tony. Tony reads the words written in Steve’s sharp, precise handwriting, and gives Steve a questioning look. Steve nods in response and behind the podium, slips his hand into Tony’s and holds on tight.

“It’s called _Avengers World_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Everyone's support has meant so much to me. 
> 
> [tumblr post](https://msermesth.tumblr.com/post/184181466624/magnetic-north)


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